Neil Lawrence | Understanding Ourselves in the Age of AI
Sun 24 Nov 2024 | 6:00pm - 7:00pm
Join Neil Lawrence, world expert on AI, to discover how and why our fears of being displaced by it might be misplaced. Contrasting our evolved, embodied intelligence with the technical origins and limitations of AI systems, he shows instead how they can and should be wielded, not just by experts but by ordinary people.
A vital perspective is missing from the discussions we’re having about Artificial Intelligence: what does it mean for our identity? Join Neil in attempting to answer this vast question.
In conversation with Gina Neff
Neil Lawrence was in the room in 2013 when the debate shifted from talking about ‘computers and statistics’ to ‘AI and intelligence’. Today, Neil leads on projects designing new directions, reimagining health systems and education in Africa, empowering academics to involve themselves in the debates, challenging the corporations, reducing the power of the software engineers, and empowering us – nurses and lawyers, administrators, customers – to defend our essential humanity to deliver the society we want and need.
Venue: Old Divinity School
Duration: 1 hour
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Author Biography
Neil Lawrence is a professor of machine learning whose technical expertise is in uncertainty and machine learning methods. With the increased impact of machine learning in society, in particular its use as the principal technology underpinning modern artificial intelligence, Neil has also become interested in public understanding of machine learning, policy decisions around machine learning and the implications for data governance.
As well as his departmental roles he serves on the board of the conference AISTATS and the ELLIS Foundation, and as the founding and series editor for the Proceedings of Machine Learning Research.
Chair Biography
Gina Neff is the Executive Director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology & Democracy at the University of Cambridge. Her books include Venture Labor (MIT Press 2012), Self-Tracking (MIT Press 2016) and Human-Centered Data Science (MIT Press 2022).
Her research focuses on the effects of the rapid expansion of our digital information environment on workers and workplaces and in our everyday lives. Professor Neff holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University and advises international organisations including UNESCO and the OECD. She is on the executive leadership team and chair of the strategy group for UKRI Responsible AI UK (RAI), and is associate director of the ESRC Digital Good Network. She leads the Humanitarian Action Programme at the University of Cambridge, and leads a work package on the Horizon Europe international AI4Trust team to tackle online misinformation building human-in-the-loop AI detection tools for multilingual, multimodal and multiplatform solutions.
Her academic research has won awards in both engineering and social sciences. Professor Neff led the team that won the 2021 Webby for the best educational website on the Internet, for the A to Z of AI, which has reached over 1 million people in 17 different languages.
