ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: IMAGINARY FUTURES OR IMMINENT POSSIBILITY?

CYBERSALON @ THE DANA CENTRE

The Dana Centre, 165 Queen's Gate, South Kensington, London SW7 5HE <www.danacentre.org.uk>
Cost: This event is free but places must be booked
by calling 020 7942 4040 or by emailing: <tickets[AT]danacentre.org.uk>
Nearest tubes: South Kensington/Gloucester
Road

MORE DETAILS HERE

VIEW THE LIVE WEBCAST HERE (7-9.30pm)

The May Cybersalon will discuss our fascination with “thinking
machines” and “anthropomorphic computing”. This raises
a whole host of issues, ranging from consciousness and perception to
emotion. Is this fascination nothing more than a sci-fi fantasy left
over of the Cold War? Or are the latest advances in computing about to
realize this dream?

Is Artificial Intelligence riding on a legacy from the
time when computers were expensive, magical, rare, and room-sized? Now
that they are cheap, everyday, ubiquitous and small, can Artificial Intelligence
continue to hold? Maybe it needs to be rethought as Simulated Intelligence,
where the critical issues would no longer be about whether machines can
think and feel and have consciousness, but would reside around the limits
and possibilities of simulation and how we respond to it?

Participants include Dr. Satinder
Gill, Associate Editor of ‘Artificial Intelligence & Society’; Dr.
Richard Barbrook, Hypermedia Research Centre, University of
Westminister; Dr. Joanna Bryson, University
of Bath; Dr. Owen Holland, University
of Essex; and some machines which may - or may not – be able
to “think”.

We begin with Owen Holland, introducing us to the current
state of AI and the issues of machine consciousness, and collective intelligence.
To be followed by Richard Barbrook’s thought provoking discussion
of the historical and social context within which to understand the public
consumption of AI. Satinder Gill will then reflect on the idea of simulation
and the notion of the artificial, to be followed by Joanna Bryson’s
new AI perspective on using machines to understand human complexity,
and how understanding primate intelligence can shed light both on human
intelligence and machine possibilities.

Complete with a wired café-bar connecting it to
people all around the world, the Dana Centre brings exciting, informative
and lively discussion to people who want to talk about challenging and
cutting edge topics in science, the arts and culture. The evening will
be web cast live from the Dana Centre, enabling a worldwide audience
to engage and interact with the event.