Royal Institution: AI and Parkinson's

Every Christmas since - well, as far back as I can remember - the Royal Institution puts on a series of three lectures aimed at introducing young people to some area of science. The lectures, which include some spectacular demos, are shown on BBC Television.

The Royal Institution in London, founded in 1799 to spread scientific knowledge `

This year the subject is AI and the lecturer is a brilliant communicator Oxford University’s Professor of Computer Science Michael Wooldridge. And to my great excitement I feature in the second lecture which looks at the ways in which artificial intelligence can improve healthcare.

With Professor Mile Wooldridge, this year’s Christmas lecturer

My role is to be the guinea pig trying out a pen which can diagnose Parkinson’s and measure its progress. The inventor of the Neuromotor Pen is Rutger Zietsma, a Dutchman who came up with the idea when working on his PhD and has spent over a deacde developing the product. His Edinburgh-based company Manus Neurodynamics has got regulatory approval for the device which gives an extremely sensitive readout of the user’s movements as they carry out a series of tests, drawing with the pen on a tablet computer.

Rutger and I met for the first time at the Royal Institution on the day in mid-December when the second lecture was recorded. It was a fascinating experience being part of what is an extremely sophisticated broadcasting operation. The team behind the broadcast, many of whom have been doing this event for years, spend all day rehearsing the various demos that make up the lecture.

Getting ready for a leading role, the dog demonstrating how computers learn

In the second lecture a segment about how computers learn involved a dog which had to perform various tasks in return for treats - the dog seemed amiable enough but was prone to barking during other people’s demos. Then in the evening the lecture is recorded in the historic theatre in front of a lively audience of secondary schoolchildren, a few of whom get invited to take part. So my rule - never work with children, animals or technology - was broken on all counts.

Backstage, as the lecturer is readied for action

The Royal Institution’s theatre is a wonderful space, where the likes of Michael Faraday and Humphry Davy lectured to Victorian audiences, but it is a challenging environment in which to record high tech demos. It became clear, for instance, that the wi-fi connection we needed to demonstrate the pen was prone to fading or dropping out altogether.

Still, by. the time it came to perform our demonstration for real and be quizzed about it by Professor Wooldridge, things seemed to go pretty well. At least, I think they did - I will only be sure when I tune in. The first lecture is on BBC4 on Boxing Day at 8pm, with the two others at the same time on December 27th and 28th. Or if you want to binge watch all three, catch them on iPlayer here.