The Society for the study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour
The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour
AISB Fellow Professor Luciano Floridi will give the annual keynote lecture for the "AI and Democracy" seminar on January 16 at 18:00 (CET). The focus is on a philosophical understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its impact.
Register here: https://www.eui.eu/events?id=563863
We’re excited to announce that we are partnering with Big Data & AI World 2024 again this year. The event is taking place on 6 & 7 March at ExCeL, London. We will also be partnering with the Frankfurt edition of Big Data & AI World in May.
It would be great to see you there, register for free to join us: Click here to register
Follow the latest news and speaker lineup: Stellar speaker lineup announced for Tech Show London 2024
Professor Mike Wooldridge, Fellow of AISB, Professor of AI at Oxford University and Director for AI at The Alan Turing Institute in London will present the prestigious Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in December 2023. He will tackle the big questions facing AI research. He will illustrate the mind-boggling scale of modern AI systems, while showing us the role that AI already plays in our lives, without us even being aware of it. With today’s AI tools such as ChatGPT and AlphaGo being just a hint of what is to come, Mike will also discuss the ethical and societal questions that AI raises, from machines adopting human prejudices, through to machines that operate as our boss at work, to questions about whether AI might even be a risk to humanity. And finally, he’ll address the really big question of AI: can it ever truly be like us, or are humans unique?
AISB Seminar/Webinar
Alan Bundy
The History of the DReaM Group
8 March 2021
5pm
In this first installation of the new AISB Seminar series, we welcome Prof Alan Bundy, AISB Fellow and recent awardee of the EurAI Distinguished Service Award.
Abstract: I describe the history of the DReaM Group (Discovery and Reasoning in Mathematics), which I created after my arrival at the University of Edinburgh in 1971. The group has been characterised by its diversity of approaches to the representation of and reasoning with knowledge, including: deduction; meta-level reasoning; learning, especially of new reasoning methods; representation creation and change; as well as applications to problems as diverse as formal verification, analogical blending and computational creativity.
View the recording at https://aisb.org.uk/aisb-events/.
The Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems at the University of Plymouth started their post-graduate & research CRNS@Webinar, a series of virtual research workshops that started in the fall 2020 semester.
The focus of these workshops is to create an interactive and virtual platform where students from our postgraduate programs, PhDs and our academic staff from different research groups can have the opportunity to engage with researchers from national and international academic and research institutions on advanced topics in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Robotics.
Each webinar lasts about 45 minutes, and features a guest lecturer and an interactive Q&A session.
The webinars are streamed live via Zoom, where they are recorded and archived prior consent of the speakers and can be accessed for free any time after the seminar (webinar archive).
Spring slots for the Seminar are available and interested speakers should use the provided contact on the webinar page.
Alan Bundy is Professor of Automated Reasoning in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests include: the automation of mathematical reasoning, with applications to reasoning about the correctness of computer software and hardware; and the automatic construction, analysis and evolution of representations of knowledge. His research combines artificial intelligence with theoretical computer science and applies this to practical problems in the development and maintenance of computing systems. He is the author of over 300 publications and has held over 60 research grants.
He is a fellow of several academic societies, including the Royal Society, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Association for Computing Machinery, and the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB). His awards include the IJCAI Research Excellence Award (2007), the CADE Herbrand Award (2007) and a CBE (2012). He was: Edinburgh’s founding Head of Informatics (1998-2001); founding Convener of UKCRC (2000-05); and a Vice President and Trustee of the British Computer Society with special responsibility for the Academy of Computing (2010-12). He was also a member of: the Hewlett-Packard Research Board (1989-91); the ITEC Foresight Panel (1994-96); both the 2001 and 2008 Computer Science RAE panels (1999-2001, 2005-8); and the Scottish Science Advisory Council (2008-12).
The Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute (AIAI) was created by the University of Edinburgh in 1983 to work alongside its academic Department of Artificial Intelligence to encourage the development and take-up of artificial intelligence methods. Over the years it has created many innovative applications of AI with a wide range of clients, government agencies and collaborators. In 2001 it became part of the Centre for Intelligent Systems and their Applications (CISA) within the School of Informatics at Edinburgh continuing to lead its AI applications-orientated work. On 1st December 2019, the name of the Centre was changed to the “Artificial Intelligence and its Applications Institute” (AIAI) to reflect both the continuing research and applications aspects of the work. Applied AI work continues to be performed by staff, students and collaborators across the School of Informatics.
Austin Tate, Emeritus Professor of Knowledge-Based Systems, University of Edinburgh
Note: an extended version of this announcement, together with details of the history of Artificial Intelligence research at Edinburgh since 1963, will feature in the upcoming issue of the AISB Quarterly magazine.
As part of its mission to support the public understanding of Artificial Intelligence, AISB is endorsing the From thinking tools to AI session of the Digital thinking tools badged course. The session can be studied on its own or as part of the course any time, and it is free of charge. The course itself is badged by both the Open University and the Institute of Coding.
The session From thinking tools to AI is about the dream of thinking machines. It traces the history of this dream from medieval times through to the AI developments of the 21st century. It critically examines the idea that AI will make humans redundant and argues that focusing on AI supremacy runs the danger of ignoring the more immediate dangers arising from AI making decisions using opaque algorithms and biased data.
The topics of opaque algorithms, explainable Artificial Intelligence and the broader question of what it means for machines to think have under discussion at many symposia of the AISB’s annual convention. This year’s convention, which is currently being rescheduled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, includes several symposia on topics such as opacity in machine learning, responsibility and control, Do Robots Talk?, AI and Moral Learning, and AI and Robotics Normative Spheres.
CLAIRE is a new initiative by the European AI community that seeks to strengthen European excellence in AI research and innovation. To achieve this, CLAIRE proposes the establishment of a pan-European Confederation of Laboratories for AI Research in Europe.
Activities and Funding for Researchers (EPSRC).
Intediciplinary Collaboration (NESTA) – parts of this cover PU activities.
Beacons for Public Engagement (RCUK) – list of university based collaborative centres.
Communication Skills and Media Training Courses (Royal Society) – EPSRC will pay for these courses as part of a normal science grant.
Funding for Public Engagement (Science and Technology Facilities Council).
Public Engagement (Wellcome).