- Home
- About the College
- Governance
- College Committees & Steering Groups
- College Assembly
- College Council
- College Executive Management Committee
- College Academic Programmes and Curriculum Development Committee
- College Graduate Studies Committee
- College Research & Innovation Committee
- College Teaching Learning and Student Experience Committee
- College Student Recruitment and Outreach Committee
- College Sabbatical Research Leave Committee
- College of SEFS Adjunct Appointments Committee
- International Education Committee
- College Postgraduate Student Committee
- Athena SWAN Steering Group
- College Committees & Steering Groups
- Human Resources (UCC Access Only)
- Annual UCC STEM Awards
- Scholarships and Prizes
- Women in STEM Panel Talks
- Inaugural Professorial Lectures
- Athena SWAN in SEFS
- Proposal Calls (UCC Access Only)
- Photo Gallery
- Contact Us
- Science in Society Public Lecture Series
- Governance
- News
- Staff
- Schools and Departments
- Current Students
- Undergraduate Courses
- Postgraduate Courses
- International Students
- Research and Innovation
- Employability and Careers
- Outreach and Public Engagement
News 2021
Academy Discourse: AI through the looking glass with Barry O'Sullivan
About this Event
This Discourse is part of the Royal Irish Academy 2020/21 Series sponsored by Mason Hayes & Curran LLP.
To register for this free event, click here.
Artificial intelligence
Artificial Intelligence is set to transform society in the coming decades in ways that have long been predicted by science fiction writers but are only now becoming feasible.
While AI is still a long way from being as powerful as the human brain, many machines can now outperform human beings, particularly when it comes to analysing large amounts of data. This will lead to many jobs being replaced by automated processes and machines.
As with all major technological revolutions, such advancements bring with it unexpected opportunities and challenges for society with a need to consider the ethical, accountability and diversity impacts.
About the discourse
In this talk, speaker Wendy Hall will lay out why we need to take a socio-technical approach to every aspect of the evolution of AI in society, to ensure that we all reap the benefits of AI and protect ourselves as much as possible from applications of AI that might be harmful to society.
As Alice found when she went through the looking glass, everything is not always what it first appears to be.
About the respondent
Barry O’Sullivan, MRIA is a Professor in the School of Computer Science & Information Technology at University College Cork.
He is founding director of the Insight Centre for Data Analytics at UCC and the SFI Centre for Research Training in Artificial Intelligence.
Professor O’Sullivan is a Fellow and Past President of the European AI Association and Vice Chair of the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence. He currently serves on the Executive Council of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.
He is an award-winning academic working in the fields of artificial intelligence, constraint programming, and operations research. He also works in AI and data ethics, as well as public policy-making and diplomacy related to AI. In 2017, he was elected Member of the Royal Irish Academy.