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Will we use artificial intelligence to detect crooked tiles on the street? Do we use quantum computing to calculate the ideal route for supply traffic? Do we use algorithms to predict which homes have lead pipes? Amsterdam is constantly investigating what new technologies are on the market and how we can best use them.

longform.ai, a spin-off from the University of Amsterdam, has received €300,000 in funding from Innovatiefonds Noord-Holland. The startup, co-founded by Paul Groth, professor of Data Science at UvA, develops AI technology to extract valuable insights from large amounts of audio data.  

The Symbiotic City presentation is now on display in the ARTIS-Groote Museum. This exhibition envisions a future Amsterdam where nature and people coexist in harmony. The project, initiated by Remco Kort, a microbiologist at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and ARTIS-Micropia professor, uses AI to visualize the collective insights from various disciplines gathered during The Symbiotic City workshop.

The open-access Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS Au) has just published an invited perspective by Dr. Saer Samanipour and his team on the daunting challenge of mapping all the chemicals around us. Samanipour, an Assistant Professor at the Van ‘t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences of the University of Amsterdam (UvA), takes inventory of the available science and concludes that currently a real pro-active chemical management is not feasible. To really get a grip on the vast and expanding chemical universe, Samanipour advocates the use of machine learning and AI, complementing existing strategies for detecting and identifying all molecules we are exposed to.

AI can take over many of our tasks, creating endless possibilities. But how can we ensure that AI models are understandable and explainable to humans? In a new, interdisciplinary research project, UvA researchers are developing a method for this. ‘We accept more easily what makes sense to us – and that can lead us to trust systems that are not trustworthy.’