AI is a transformative technology with enormous economic, scientific and social benefit, one that is driving the fourth industrial revolution. Advanced machine learning algorithms are already dramatically changing how private and public institutions function, by automating numerous cognitive processes, generating new efficiencies, and enabling deeper, data-derived insights and predictions. Despite...
Category: Science and Society
Stories we tell, machines we build: a talk at the An{0}ther {AI} in Art summit in NY
I was invited to deliver the keynote talk at the An{0}ther {AI} in Art Summit in New York, at the New Museum on April 24, 2019. This is the unabridged version of my talk. In 1649 Rene Descartes, the most famous philosopher in Europe at the time, accepted the invitation...
Work, Love, Polis: a talk at the National Library of Norway
On December 5, 2018 I was honoured with an invitation to open the "Fantastic Futures AI Conference" organized by the National Library of Norway, in Oslo. I put together my talk like a triptych of words; "Work", "Love" and "Polis". For each of the words I used a story to...
21 Century Business Review Interview
"21 Century Business Review" is issued by the Nanfang Media Group, and is a monthly business journal under the 21 Century newspapers and magazines system. It was founded on 1st September 2004, and has attracted over 1 million readers by now with its "one journal + one website + APP...
The fallacy of thinking intelligence as software
During the Enlightenment the human body was thought of as a kind of clock. That was because the dominant technology of the day was mechanical engineering.Christiaan Huygens invented the pendulum clock in the 1600s, and in the following decades and centuries, all across Europe, the miraculous ticking of interconnected gears...
Will robots destroy the human race? A debate at the Art Club
The full video of the debate that took place at the Art Club in London on Monday 14th September 2015. For the motion were Ian Yorston (Director of Digital Strategy at Radley College) and Dale Lane (Senior Developer at IBM Watson). Against the motion were Murray Shanahan (Professor of cognitive...
English Language and Science: a lecture and discussion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgb0OALoL08#t=4418 I was honoured to be a participant in a public discussion about Science and the English Language, held at the English Speaking Union in London on 13the November 2014. My co-panelists are astrophysicist Roberto Trotta and geneticist Aarathi Prasad. The discussion follows a lecture by Trotta around his book...
Famelab International for the best “stand-up scientist”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs32UWuLzys&w=560&h=315] This is the final of Famelab International 2014, held at the Cheltenham Science Festival on June 5, 2014. I was one of the three judges, together with Jim Al-Khalili and Alice Roberts. I have been involved with Famelab International since its conception in 2007, have trained contestants, co-organized...
10 Equations that rule your life
[slideshare id=29907472&sc=no] I posted this presentation on SlideShare in order to connect everyday experience and mathematics. My intention was to use curiosity in order to present mathematics as relevant to everyday life. By juxtaposing pictures of people and snapshots of mathematical formulas I aimed to suggest semantic pairs where the...