Editors’ blog

News, updates, and discussions from the Editorial Board

Photo of Thank You sign against a backdrop of a city at night.

Editor’s note: Not saying goodbye, just saying…

People
Updates
I’ll be leaving Real World Data Science and the Royal Statistical Society in a month’s time. Before I go, I want to say a big thank you to all the contributors, readers, staff and members that I’ve been fortunate to work with over the years.
Mar 6, 2024
Brian Tarran

Photo of the UK Houses of Parliament at dusk, taken from across the River Thames.

£10m for UK regulators to ‘jumpstart’ AI capabilities, as government commits to white paper approach

AI
Large language models
Public policy
Risk
Regulation
It’s been a busy seven days for AI news in the UK as two major government reports were published, millions of pounds of new investments were announced, and warnings rang out of the risk of ‘regulatory capture.’ Here are some key takeaways.
Feb 8, 2024
Brian Tarran

Long exposure photo of the UK Houses of Parliament and Portcullis House, taken from across the River Thames.

UK government sets out 10 principles for use of generative AI

AI ethics
Large language models
Monitoring
Public policy
Risk
Government says staff need to understand what generative AI is, its limitations, and how to deploy the technology lawfully, ethically and securely.
Jan 22, 2024
Brian Tarran

Photo of Japanese cherry blossom, or sakura, against a blue background. Photo by AJ on Unsplash.

When will the cherry trees bloom? Get ready to make and share your predictions!

Coding
Prediction
Reproducible research
Statistics
The 2024 International Cherry Blossom Prediction Competition will open for entries on February 1. There’s cash and prizes on offer for the best entries, including having your work featured on Real World Data Science.
Jan 18, 2024
Brian Tarran

Still from posit::conf(2023) talk, splitscreen view. On the left screen is Real World Data Science editor Brian Tarran presenting; on the right screen is a screengrab of the Quarto webpage, with the words GitHub Pages circled in red.

Creating a web publication with Quarto: the Real World Data Science origin story

Coding
Communication
Events
Communities
Open source
This is the story of how a Royal Statistical Society editor discovered an open source publishing system called Quarto, learned how to code (a bit), and built an online publication for the data science community.
Jan 3, 2024
Brian Tarran

Purple square with white snowflakes and green tree in foreground. Tree is decorated with red and gold baubles of various sizes.

A Christmas card in R for the Real World Data Science community

R
Data visualisation
Updates
Inspired by Nicola Rennie’s excellent tutorial on making Christmas cards with R, we’ve had a go at putting together our own design – especially for you, the wonderful community of Real World Data Science readers and contributors. Thank you for supporting us this year!
Dec 12, 2023
Brian Tarran

Black computer screen showing a folder icon, with the numbers 2023 being typed out below.

AI and digital ethics in 2023: a ‘remarkable, eventful year’

AI
Large language models
Ethics
Regulation
Risk
At techUK’s Digital Ethics Summit, experts looked back on a year in which AI chatbots dominated debates, helped shape legislative agendas, and opened our eyes to the dangers posed by the ‘democratisation of disinformation.’
Dec 8, 2023
Brian Tarran

Screengrab of RSS Conference panel members showing, left to right, Peter Wells, Maxine Setiawan, Sophie Carr, Chris Nemeth, and Karen Tingay.

How data science and statistics can shape the UK’s AI strategy

AI
Large language models
Events
At the Royal Statistical Society Conference this September, Real World Data Science brought together data scientists, statisticians, and policy experts to discuss the urgent topic of artificial intelligence – risks, benefits, evaluation, and regulation. Watch the panel discussion in full!
Oct 30, 2023
Brian Tarran

Halloween characters chatting over coffee at a professional conference focused on data science, digital art created by Bing Image Creator.

Join Real World Data Science at three events this October!

AI
Large language models
Communities
Events
Updates
An introduction to Real World Data Science as part of RSS Members’ Week; a keynote talk at the NHS-R Community Annual Conference; and a panel debate on AI evaluation, exploring how data science and statistics can help make sense of AI models. Halloween costumes not required…
Oct 10, 2023
Brian Tarran

Two laptops connecting directly and becoming super charged, with a range of data visualisations in the background, comic book style. Created by Bing Image Creator.

American Statistical Association joins Real World Data Science as partner

News
Updates
Call for contributions
We’re thrilled to have ASA on board as a Real World Data Science partner and look forward to working with ASA members, groups and sections to further grow and develop the site.
Oct 2, 2023
Brian Tarran

Chicago Theatre sign, illuminated at night.

Live from Chicago: Real World Data Science at posit::conf(2023)

Conferences
Events
This year’s posit::conf has come to a close, and we had a great time in Chicago learning about data science software, ideas, and applications. Read on for key takeaways from a selection of talks and sessions.
Sep 27, 2023
Brian Tarran

A small figurine of an oktokata in the center, in the background a laptop with an open code editor and a terminal.

Contributors: check out the new Real World Data Science template repo on GitHub

Call for contributions
Tools
Updates
The ‘RWDS_post_template’ repository, created by Finn-Ole Höner, demonstrates various Quarto features and helps site contributors to create content using our house style and format.
Sep 12, 2023
Brian Tarran

Exterior photo of the Harrogate Convention Centre.

RSS Conference preview: Evaluating AI, machine learning, and data visualisation

AI
Machine learning
Data visualisation
Events
Heading to RSS Conference in Harrogate this September? Here’s a selection of sessions to add to your schedule.
Aug 24, 2023
Brian Tarran

Google logo on top of building, against a blue sky.

Live from Toronto: Real World Data Science at the Joint Statistical Meetings

Conferences
Events
We’re in Toronto for this year’s Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM). Over the next few days, we’ll be sharing key takeaways from a selection of talks and sessions. Check back regularly for updates.
Aug 15, 2023
Brian Tarran

A photo of children listening to teacher in class, taken from a child's perspective.

‘Go out and talk about data science, particularly to schoolchildren’

Education
Data literacy
Outreach
Open University professor Rachel Hilliam calls for data science outreach in schools, to build skills pipeline and plug gaps: ‘There is absolutely no reason why we can’t excite children in a career in data science.’
Jul 27, 2023
Brian Tarran

Person sitting in front of a screen of code.

Testing out ChatGPT’s new Code Interpreter

AI
Large language models
Coding
Data analysis
OpenAI’s latest plugin turns ChatGPT into a tool for data cleaning, preprocessing, analysis, visualisation and predictive modelling tasks, among other things. Some have hailed it ‘the new data scientist’, but is it all it’s cracked up to be? Real World Data Science takes Code Interpreter for a test drive.
Jul 19, 2023
Lee Clewley

An aerial view of London and the River Thames, taken from The Shard, London, United Kingdom.

Teaching a chatbot about love, and other adventures from London Data Week

AI
Open source
Accountability
Public opinion
Our editor shares his personal highlights from the first ever London Data Week, including an art exhibition about AI, a panel discussion on the benefits of open source, and a workshop to help charities tap into statistical expertise.
Jul 7, 2023
Brian Tarran

A young girl holds the hand of a robot on display at the Kuromon Market in Osaka. Photo by Andy Kelly on Unsplash.

How do people feel about AI? Well, it’s complicated

AI
Accountability
Regulation
Public opinion
A new survey from the Ada Lovelace Institute and the Alan Turing Institute finds broadly positive views towards AI use cases in healthcare and border security, among others, but people are also concerned about the dangers of overreliance on the technologies and a lack of clarity around accountability.
Jun 13, 2023
Brian Tarran

Looking to distant landscape through binoculars, digital art. Image created by Bing Image Creator.

What’s the future of data science and AI in an LLM world?

Large language models
Skills
Tools
Ethics
People
Osama Rahman, director of the Data Science Campus at the UK Office for National Statistics, shared his thoughts on the past, present, and future of data science at an event this week. Here are our key takeaways.
May 26, 2023
Brian Tarran

An illustration of a colorful rainbow, with each band of the rainbow featuring a selection of numbers to represent data. Image created by Bing Image Creator.

Data science as ‘a rainbow’, and other definitions

Updates
Themes
People
Data science means different things to different people. Former RSS president Sylvia Richardson has described it as ‘a rainbow of interconnected disciplines’. What’s your personal definition?
Mar 29, 2023
Brian Tarran

A teacher is marking homework and trying to decide whether a written piece of text has been created by a student or by a large language model, digital art. Created by DALL·E, prompt by Real World Data Science.

OpenAI’s text classifier won’t calm fears about AI-written homework

AI
Large language models
Classifiers
Screening tests
Educators are worried about ChatGPT being used by students for homework assignments, so OpenAI has released a tool to classify whether text is human- or AI-written. But relying on the classifier’s results is ill-advised, as some basic statistics shows.
Mar 15, 2023
Brian Tarran

Woman painting while wearing virtual reality headset. Photo by Billetto Editorial on Unsplash.

Data science can help close the ‘digital skills’ gap, or so it seems

Skills
Training
AI
Machine learning
Data analytics
A ‘digital skills’ gap is harming employer productivity and growth, according to a survey by engineering body IET. But the ‘digital skills’ that are needed sound a lot like data science skills: statistical understanding, data analytics, AI and machine learning.
Feb 14, 2023
Brian Tarran

Photo of Detlef Nauck

ChatGPT can hold a conversation, but lacks knowledge representation and original sources for verification

Machine learning
Large language models
AI
ChatGPT represents a next step in the evolution of large language models, says Detlef Nauck. However, there are still major challenges - and concerns - to overcome.
Jan 27, 2023
Brian Tarran

Flyer for RSS International Conference 2023, for all statisticians and data scientists. Taking place in Harrogate, 4-7 September 2023.

We’re taking Real World Data Science on the road

Updates
Events
Join us at the RSS International Conference 2023 in Harrogate, 4-7 September.
Jan 18, 2023
Brian Tarran

Photo of an email app on a mobile device screen, showing 2 unread notifications. Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash.

Explore the RSS Data Science & AI Section newsletter, right here!

Updates
Newsletters
We’re starting the year with a new addition to the site: a page dedicated to the excellent RSS Data Science & AI Section newsletter.
Jan 5, 2023
Brian Tarran

DataScienceBites logo. A dark grey circle with bite marks cut out. Overlaid text says, Import grad_students as writers, import new_research_papers as nrp, print(writers + nrp) and the title DataScienceBites.

Sink your teeth into some data science papers with our brand new blog

Updates
Content ideas
Call for contributions
Today we’re launching DataScienceBites – a new member of the ScienceBites family – offering bite-sized summaries of data science papers.
Dec 13, 2022
Brian Tarran

A screenshot of an exchange between Real World Data Science editor Brian Tarran and ChatGPT.

A chat with ChatGPT

Machine learning
Large language models
AI
‘Hello there! I’m a large language model trained by OpenAI, so I don’t have the ability to experience emotions or have a physical presence. I’m here to provide information and answer questions to the best of my ability. Is there something specific you would like to know?’
Dec 9, 2022
Brian Tarran

An image created by the Stable Diffusion 2.1 Demo. The model was asked to produce an image with the prompt, 'Text from an old book cut up like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing'.

LLMs in the news: hype, tripe, and everything in between

Machine learning
Large language models
AI
We’re back discussing large language models after two weeks of ‘breakthrough’ announcements, excitable headlines, and some all-too-familiar ethical concerns.
Dec 9, 2022
Brian Tarran

A photo of a black stencilled number 4 on a white brick wall. Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash.

Four themes for potential contributors to think about

Updates
Themes
Content ideas
Can data science save the world? What is a data scientist? What statistical ideas do data scientists need to know? And, what’s happening in the world of data science?
Dec 1, 2022
Brian Tarran

A black keyboard at the bottom of the picture has an open book on it, with red words in labels floating on top, with a letter A balanced on top of them. The perspective makes the composition form a kind of triangle from the keyboard to the capital A. The AI filter makes it look like a messy, with a kind of cartoon style.

Why large language models should come with a content warning

Machine learning
Large language models
AI
The outputs of LLMs seem impressive, but users need to be wary of possible bias, plagiarism and model ‘hallucinations’.
Nov 23, 2022
Brian Tarran

Portrait photos of 12 members of the Real World Data Science Editorial team

Meet the team

People
Biographies
Introducing the editors of Real World Data Science.
Oct 18, 2022
Editorial Board
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