Artificial Intelligence: ‘Seize the Opportunities, Avoid the Hazards’

De Montfort University in Leicester, England, is running a one-day international symposium on the topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Our subtitle ‘Seize the Opportunities, Avoid the Hazards‘ is meant somewhat ironically, since this is obviously what humanity needs to do but just how we do it is not well understood or agreed upon.

The talks at the symposium will focus on the technological state of the art and the immediate future just what is being done now with AI and what can we expect to see coming soon and also the sociological implications of the technology. 10 years techno-optimists predicted imminent widespread adoption of self-driving cars in the developed world but this has yet to happen, not least because citizens and lawmakers are not satisfied that the ethical implications regarding collisions and blame have been resolved. Ethical considerations are also paramount in the application of AI in the fields of medicine, law, and employment. In creative endeavors, the training of AIs on human-created content seems to some an unreasonable misuse of published works. This symposium will range across these problems, hearing from experts and seeking to discover areas of consensus and possible pathways through the most contentious areas of disagreement.