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The Artificial Intelligence and Society discussion group is an interdisciplinary group, set up to discuss the social and ethical implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Our members are drawn from several departments at the University of Otago, including Computer Science, Information Science, Philosophy, Law, Zoology, Linguistics, and HEDC (the Higher Education Development Centre). The group has over 40 members; some of those who have given presentations are shown below.
Colin Gavaghan, Faculty of Law
James MacLaurin, Dept of Philosophy
Alistair Knott, Dept of Computer Science
Brendan McCane, Dept of Computer Science
Steven Mills, Dept of Computer Science
Martin Takac, Dept of Computer Science
Lisa Ellis, Dept of Philosophy / PPE program
Hannah Clark-Younger, Dept of Philosophy
Michael Winikoff, Dept of Information Science
Stephen Cranefield, Dept of Information Science
Paul Hansen, Dept of Economics
Mike Paulin, Dept of Zoology
Hunter Hatfield, School of Linguistics
Activities
- Our main current activity is a regular seminar series. This page holds a record of the seminars that have taken place.
If you would like to be on the mailing list for these seminars, please contact Alistair Knott (alik at cs dot otago dot ac dot nz)
- Some of our members also run a project on Artificial Intelligence and Law in New Zealand, funded by the NZ Law Foundation. The project runs from 2017 to 2019.
Introductory seminars
- Seminar 1 (4th March): Introduction (Alistair Knott, James Maclaurin, Colin Gavaghan)
- Seminar 2 (18th March): Survey of Initiatives discussing AI and Society around the world (Michael Winikoff, Martin Takac, Alistair Knott)
Seminars surveying the state of the art in AI, and prospects for the near future
- Seminar 3 (8th April): Machine Learning, Computer Vision (Brendan McCane, Steven Mills)
- Seminar 4 (15th April): Motor Control, Agents (Mike Paulin, Michael Winikoff)
- Seminar 5 (22nd April): Planning, Natural Language (Stephen Cranefield, Ali Knott)
Seminars introducing some frameworks for discussing AI technologies
- Seminar 6 (29th April): Driverless cars, ethics frameworks (Steven Mills, James Maclaurin)
Seminars on recent developments in AI ethics / AI and society
Seminars on 'Strong AI'
- Seminar 8 (13th May): Will 'Strong AI' be achieved in the next 20 years? Scientific and Technological questions (James Maclaurin, Ali Knott)
- Seminar 9 (20th May): Legal / ethical issues raised by Strong AI (Lisa Ellis, James Maclaurin, Curtis Barnes, Colin Gavaghan)
- Seminar 10 (27th May): What will the job market look like in 20 years if some form of AI is achieved? (James Maclaurin, Ali Knott)
- Seminar 11 (3rd June): What will people do if AI machines are doing most of the work that people currently do? (Ali Knott, Hunter Hatfield)
Superintelligence
AI and semiautomated control
- Seminar 14 (25th Nov): Automation and Human Performance (David O'Hare, Dept of Psychology)
AI approaches to Ethics
- Seminar 15 (2nd Dec): Moral decisions by autonomous systems (Virginia Dignum, Delft University of Technology)
Uses of AI in elections
Links
- Organisations studying AI and ethics/society
- Articles on AI and ethics/society
- Will a robot take your job? A somewhat facetious interactive site using projections from a study by Carl Frey and Michael Osborne.
