TANGO projects starts with its first meeting

• Among its objectives, the project aims to have a positive effect on bringing people and Artificial Intelligence (AI) closer together

Artificial intelligence (AI) holds enormous potential to improve human decisions and avoid cognitive overload and bias in high-risk scenarios. TANGO argues that for AI to fully realize its enormous potential in terms of positive impact on people, society, and the economy, we need to completely rethink the way AI systems are conceived. The European Union recognizes the need to encourage such research and innovation in this field, and in March TANGO was awarded €8 million to develop the theoretical foundations and computational framework for synergistic human-machine decision-making, paving the way for the next generation of human-centered AI systems.

Professor Novi Quadrianto (University of Sussex - BCAM), together with Oliver Thomas (Postdoc at the University of Sussex), collaborated on the project from the Basque Centre for Applied Mathematics (BCAM).  "We are super excited to start working on this important project with excellent consortium members in which we will lead the development of reliable models with fairness and bias considerations and translate those reliable models into ethical and reliable decision-making," commented Quadrianto. The work at BCAM was carried out as part of the BCAM Severo Ochoa Strategic Lab on Trustworthy Machine Learning. Jose A. Lozano, Scientific Director at BCAM, participated in the General Assembly of the project and Ainara González (Project Manager at BCAM) participated online in the workshop with management topics. 

People must feel that they can trust the systems they interact with, in terms of the reliability of their predictions and decisions, the systems' ability to understand their needs, and assurances that their goal is really to help them and not an undeclared third party. In other words, a symbiosis must be established between humans and machines, where all parties are aligned in terms of values, goals, and beliefs, and support and complement each other to achieve goals beyond what each would be able to do on its own. To date, however, the adoption of AI-based support systems has been minimal in settings such as hospitals, courts, and public administrations. During the workshop, they discussed various topics of impact within the project such as the cognitive foundations of understanding, algorithms for machine learning, or algorithms for hybrid decision-making. In addition, they also discussed the ecosystem of their software and some case studies of the TANGO project.

The new EU-funded project started with 21 partner organizations from 9 European countries, including universities, research centers, institutions, foundations, and companies. Seven are from Italy (the University of Trento - which also coordinates the network -, University of Pisa, Italian National Research Council, Scuola Normale Superiore, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, U-Hopper srl, Intesa Sanpaolo), four from Serbia (The AI Research and Development Institute of Serbia, SHARE Foundation, A 11-Initiative for Economic and Social Rights, Ministry of Family Welfare and Demography), two from the United Kingdom (University of Swansea, University of Warwick), two from Belgium (Center for European Policy Studies, EIT Digital), one from France (Université Paris Cité) and one from Ireland (Carr Communications), Sweden (Strasbourg), Sweden (Strasbourg), and one from France (Strasbourg). (Carr Communications), Sweden (Surgical Science Sweden AB), Germany (University Hospital Heidelberg), and Spain (Basque Center for Applied Mathematics).

About BCAM

The Basque Center for Applied Mathematics - BCAM is an international research center in the field of Applied Mathematics and a center promoted by the Department of Education of the Basque Government and part of the BERC (Basque Excellence Research Centers) network. It was created in 2008 by the Basque Government through Ikerbasque. It is also supported by the UPV/EHU, the Provincial Council of Bizkaia, Innobasque, and Petronor Innovacion, and from 2022 by the Bilbao City Council. One of its main objectives is to put mathematics at the service of society through the transfer of knowledge, extending the results of its research to sectors such as biosciences, health, energy, or advanced manufacturing, and working jointly with local and international institutions and companies.

It currently has a staff of more than 150 researchers of 25 nationalities working in diverse areas, from data science or computational mathematics to mathematical modeling. BCAM has been accredited three consecutive times, the last one in the 2021 call, as a "Severo Ochoa" center of excellence by the State Research Agency, a distinction awarded to the best research institutions in the world in their field.