Agile Rabbit Agile Rabbit

Nathan Lepora, Professor of Robotics and AI at the University of Bristol, shares his vast knowledge on most recent robotic developments. Professor Lepora is interested in the intersection of artificially embodied intelligence and neuroscience and how, in turn, this manipulates how we perceive our surroundings, learn, and interact with one another.

He is the leader of the Dexterous Robotics Group in Bristol Robotics Laboratory, a collaborative research group that investigates and develops dexterous robots with a human-like sense of touch that can intelligently interact with their surroundings. Together with his research group, he has pioneered the use of 3D-printing for easy fabrication of tactile sensors, leading to multiple benefits from open-sourcing the technology to the integration into robot hands and grippers.

Professor Sabina Leonelli, Professor Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh, Professor Anthony King, Rebecca Kesby.

Whether it’s a deepfake of Taylor Swift or Rishi Sunak’s summit at Bletchley Park, news about Artificial Intelligence seems unescapable. And it’s accelerating at an unprecedented rate. With a group of world experts, we’re getting behind the headlines to look at what’s really happening in AI safety, particularly the role that law and politics play in providing regulation and reassurance.

The AI landscape is complex, ranging from positive impacts such as healthcare advances to those more negative that affect real-life opportunities and services. So, what are the risks of AI as well as the transformative opportunities?

This event was part of AI UK Fringe and in partnership with the University of Exeter’s Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and the Alan Turing Institute.

Professor Penelope Endersby FREng, Hon FInstP, Professor Hywel Williams, George Monbiot, Professor Seth Bullock, Professor Sarah Hartley, James Coomarasamy

Artificial Intelligence enables us to track environmental footprints, extreme weather events, carbon emissions, and biodiversity loss. But can it help us to find solutions to tackle some of our society’s most pressing environmental issues? AI has a staggering carbon footprint itself – but can it help us find solutions in a rapidly changing climate?

The UK’s leading data scientists and environmental thinkers joined us for this special fringe event as part of AI UK Fringe, at Dartington Hall. We heard about how scientists and companies focus their efforts and research on how AI can support communities to navigate their water supply, what the technology can tell us about our changing weather, and whether it can increase harvest globally.

This AI UK Fringe panel was for the University of Exeter's Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and in partnership with the Alan Turing Institute.

What fills the space between stars in our universe? Pure nothingness?

After sparking interest with our curious audience at Standon Calling, Tessa Baker visited us in Exeter. She discusses how space, in fact, isn’t empty and still, but can twist and stretch like a piece of elastic. And when it does, it produces special ‘sounds’ called gravitational waves, which we can hear with some incredible instruments.

Tessa Baker is Professor of Cosmology and Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Portsmouth. She take us on a journey through outer space, black holes, and the most violent events in the universe, to explain one of the most exciting scientific discoveries of the century, and what it means for our understanding of the cosmos.

From Partygate and Boris Johnson’s farewell to Jeremy Corbyn handing over Labour’s leadership to Keir Starmer – bestselling author John Crace takes us on a hilarious tour of the whirlwind world of post-Brexit Britain.

Over the past few years, the various Prime Ministers, and some heated parliamentary debates at Westminster, John Crace’s brilliant political sketches have provided the nation with some desperately needed comic relief.

He speaks about his new book, Depraved New World: Please Hold, the Government Will Be With You Shortly, capturing British politics at its most absurd.

Recorded on December 3rd 2023 at Exeter Phoenix

DEATH STARS AND DEMOCRACY

The hugely popular Star Wars films famously came about from George Lucas’s desire to tell a ‘Vietnam War in space’. Since then, the Star Wars films have always focused on repurposing contemporary events in a science fiction setting.

We’ll discover the fascinating ways in which Star Wars is inspired by real-world events and history. This event explores the films and their responses to real world moments. We also look at the books and computer games in the franchise, to see how they responded to the fall of the Soviet Union, genocides and ethnic cleansing in the 1990s, and both 9/11 and the Global War on Terror.