University Of Sheffield Researchers Develop New AI Framework To Help Businesses, Govt

Study in UK: The new framework developed by University Of Sheffield encourages businesses to implement AI and shift to a problem-first mindset from a technology-first mindset to understand how AI can help in achieving business goals.

The researchers at the University of Sheffield have developed a new framework to help organizations have a better understanding of implementing AI. In this new framework, Dr Denis Newman-Griffis from the University’s Centre for Machine Intelligence highlighted the main points that businesses should consider before working with AI.

Dr Denis Newman-Griffis, Senior Lecturer in Computer Science and Theme Lead for AI-enabled research at the University of Sheffield’s Centre for Machine Intelligence said, “Businesses and government are increasingly recognising the opportunities that AI could provide, but conversations around AI are still based on understanding its functionality and how it is built, rather than how to fit it into existing wider processes to accomplish goals. The framework we have developed here in Sheffield highlights the importance of businesses changing how they think about AI: rather than seeing it as an outside innovation they need to adopt to stay competitive, our framework helps them see AI as a toolkit they can use to get better at what they already do."

"By starting from what they do and how they do it, and then seeing where AI technologies can be helpful in that picture, businesses can make sure their adoption of AI will make sense for them and help them achieve their goals. Once they have done this, they can work from there on identifying an appropriate technology that fits that purpose, and then integrating it into the way they work," added Denis Newman-Griffis.

University Of Sheffield New Framework For AI Usage Details

The name of the Sheffield framework is AI Thinking. It breaks the process of using AI technology into five categories including:

1. Informing specific processes
2. Defining what an AI application is meant to accomplish
3. Comparing and contrasting different options for AI technologies
4. Understanding and choosing between data sources for use with AI
5. Grounding use of AI in the specific contexts where it will be applied.

Dr Denis Newman-Griffis added, “There’s no reason for the in-depth understanding of AI to be restricted solely to those with a degree in computer science. This framework has been developed with a focus on enabling a real-world, application-based perspective of AI to help people in any sector and discipline understand how to implement it into their own teams. AI Thinking helps teams bring people together and work together effectively, covering the different skills that are needed to bring AI into practice to meet operational and strategic goals. Thinking about AI in this problem-based, context-sensitive way is vital to making practical AI use both effective and ethical.”

The university said that in the UK, only 29% of the workforce is using generative AI tools such as ChatGPT at work and around 23% say they don't feel confident using it.

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