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Using Machine Learning in Safety-Critical Applications: Setting a Research Agenda

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Machine learning components are enabling advances in self-driving cars, the power grid, and robotic medicine, but what are the implications for safety?

Decades of research and practice in safety engineering have created rigorous approaches to design, model, and analyze systems that meet stringent safety criteria, but extending such techniques to include machine learning components brings new challenges.

This National Academies’ report explores ways to design machine learning algorithms that align with safety engineering standards, noting that this will require changes in research, training, and engineering practice—and a shift away from focusing on the performance of machine learning algorithms in isolation.

Events

Machine Learning for Safety-Critical Applications: Report Release Webinar

  • September 25, 2025
  • 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM (ET)
  • Webinar
  • Past

Advances in artificial intelligence, and specifically in machine learning, are enabling new capabilities across nearly every sector of the economy. Many of these applications—such as automated vehicle...

Meeting

Using Machine Learning in Safety-Critical Applications: Setting a Research Agenda (Meeting 23)

  • February 1, 2024
  • 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (ET)
  • Closed
  • Meeting
  • Past

The committee will continue to work on the report draft.

Using Machine Learning in Safety-Critical Applications: Setting a Research Agenda (Meeting 22)

  • January 25, 2024
  • 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (ET)
  • Closed
  • Meeting
  • Past

The committee will continue to work on the report draft.

Using Machine Learning in Safety-Critical Applications: Setting a Research Agenda (Meeting 21)

  • January 18, 2024
  • 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (ET)
  • Closed
  • Meeting
  • Past

The committee will continue to work on the report draft.

Using Machine Learning in Safety-Critical Applications: Setting a Research Agenda (Meeting 20)

  • January 11, 2024
  • 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (ET)
  • Closed
  • Meeting
  • Past

The committee will continue to work on the report draft.

Using Machine Learning in Safety-Critical Applications: Setting a Research Agenda (Meeting 19)

  • January 4, 2024
  • 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (ET)
  • Closed
  • Meeting
  • Past

The committee will continue to work on the report draft.

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