Spotlight on: Michael Fisher
Michael Fisher, Principal Investigator, TAS Computational Agent Responsibility project, Deputy Principal Investigator for the TAs Verifiability Node
After previous academic positions at Manchester Metropolitan and Liverpool universities, Michael Fisher now holds a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies (on the topic of “Responsible Autonomous Systems”) in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Manchester. He is a Fellow of both the BCS and IET, and a member of EPSRC’s Strategic Advisory Network.
Fisher’s research centres on the safety, ethics, trustworthiness and, especially, verification of autonomous systems and, within the TAS Programme, He is Deputy PI of the TAS Verifiability Node and PI of the TAS “Computational Agent Responsibility” research project. More broadly he is Co-I on three ISCF “Robots for a Safer World” Hubs tackling Nuclear, Offshore and Space Robotics. His work on verifiable autonomy, trustworthy AI, and system self-awareness not only provides a basis for research within the Verifiability Node, but also allows autonomous systems to be developed not only to be verifiable, but ethical, explainable and (ideally) certifiable by design.
This has led to a wider role addressing trustworthy autonomy not only at academic events but across international organisations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Global Forum on AI for Humanity. In particular, Fisher co-chairs the IEEE Technical Committee on the Verification of Autonomous Systems, and is a member of the IEEE P7009 Standards committee on “Fail-Safe Design of Autonomous Systems”. Within the UK he is a member of the BSI’s AMT/10 committee on Robotics and chair of the new BSI Committee on Sustainable Robotics.