Academic

Researchers who have worked in computer science or artificial intelligence for more than a few years will have experienced a profound shift in the public perception of their field from being something that people rarely cared about outside of sci-fi or niche academic or “geek” interest to something that is suddenly everywhere all over the world and seems to be permeating every field and every product. How should we respond to this?

It is a sad trait of the human race that we tend to categorise others in order to justify what we can do to them.

The worry of an ‘AI Winter’ only exists if we cannot fathom how to see Spring.

Artificial intelligence is about making computers that do the sorts of things that minds can do. Yet the set of mental things that today’s intelligent machines can do is clearly imbalanced. If we were to make intelligent machines reflective, might this help their trustworthiness?

Embedding AI in society presents a complex mix of technical and social challenges. As more decisions are delegated to machines that we cannot fully verify, understand, or control, will AI systems be trusted?