In conversation with Toby Walsh

Listen to this ANU/Canberra Times Meet the Author conversation on the Experience ANU SoundCloud channel

Toby Walsh will be in conversation with Andrew Leigh, on Machines Behaving Badly: The Morality of AI, in which Professor Walsh, a world-leading researcher in the field of artificial intelligence, examines the ethical issues we face in a future dominated by artificial intelligence. Is Alexa racist? Can robots have rights? What happens if a self-driving car kills someone? What limitations should we put on the use of facial recognition? Can we build moral machines?

Artificial intelligence is an essential part of our lives - for better or worse. It can be used to influence what we buy, who gets shortlisted for a job and even how we vote. Without AI, medical technology wouldn't have come so far, we'd still be getting lost on backroads in our GPS-free cars, and smartphones wouldn't be so, well, smart. But as we continue to build more intelligent and autonomous machines, what impact will this have on humanity and the planet?

Machines Behaving Badly is a thought-provoking look at the increasing human reliance on robotics and the decisions that need to be made now to ensure the future of AI is as a force for good, not evil.

Toby Walsh, one of the world's leading researchers in Artificial Intelligence, is Laureate Fellow and Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of New South Wales. He leads a research group at Data61, Australia's Centre of Excellence for ICT Research. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Association for Computing Machinery, the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and of the European Association for Artificial Intelligence, and has won the prestigious Humboldt Prize and the NSW Premier's Prize for Excellence in Engineering and ICT. He is the author of two previously internationally acclaimed books, 2062: The World that AI Made and It's Alive!: Artificial Intelligence from the Logic Piano to Killer Robots.

Dr Andrew Leigh MP is the Federal Member for Fenner in the ACT. Before being elected in 2010, he was a Professor of Economics at the ANU. His latest book is What's the Worst That Could Happen? Existential Risk and Extreme Politics.

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A podcast will be made available after the event.