3 episodes
Steering AI UCL Minds
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- Technology
Artificial Intelligence is hurtling us into an unknown future. Will it pollute our infosphere, reinforce biases, or even be an existential risk? Or will AI help us solve the energy crisis, revolutionise healthcare and even eliminate the need for work? Perhaps all of these? On Steering AI, we talk to leading academic experts at the cutting-edge of this increasingly powerful and pervasive technology, hearing their views on the benefits and how to steer around the risks. The first step to mitigate a threat is to understand it. Technological progress is hard to predict, but no one doubts AI will have an enormous impact on our lives. Brainstorming with the experts, we seek to understand the problems we’re already facing, and what might be coming our way.
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E3: Chris Watkins on existential risk and paths to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
How far away are we from creating AI systems whose capabilities rival our own? And would doing so pose an existential risk? In this episode, we speak to Chris Watkins, Professor of Machine Learning at Royal Holloway, University of London. Professor Watkins introduced the hugely influential Q-learning algorithm during his PhD at Cambridge, which, when combined with neural networks, ultimately led to DeepMind’s incredible Atari playing agent in 2013. He has done fascinating research in kernel methods, the role of communication in pandemic modelling, and information-theoretic analysis of evolution.
Date of episode recording: 2023-10-17T00:00:00Z Duration: 01:34:20 Language of episode: English Presenter: Reuben Adams Guests: Chris Watkins Producer: Reuben Adams -
E2: Lewis Griffin on how Large Language Models (LLMs) could be used for political influence
Will Large Language Models (LLM) allow states to wage propaganda campaigns of unprecedented scale and persuasiveness? Or is this just another moral panic about new technology? In this episode, we talk with Lewis Griffin, Professor of Computer Vision at UCL. He has recently found some evidence that humans and LLMs can be persuaded in similar ways, and warns that it may soon be possible for states to optimise the persuasiveness of propaganda by testing it on LLMs, just like we test drugs on mice.
Date of episode recording: 2023-10-17T00:00:00Z Duration: 01:23:33 Language of episode: English Presenter: Reuben Adams Guests: Lewis Griffin Producer: Reuben Adams -
E1: Marc Deisenroth on AI for science and the future of work
How can AI help mitigate the climate crisis? What are the advantages of simple models such as Gaussian Processes? And what will AI mean for the future of work? In this episode, we talk with Professor Marc Deisenroth, DeepMind Chair of Machine Learning and AI at UCL, and Deputy Director of the UCL Centre for Artificial Intelligence, where he leads the Statistical Machine Learning Group. His research interests centre around data-efficient machine learning, probabilistic modelling and autonomous decision-making with applications in climate/weather science and robotics.
Date of episode recording: 2023-10-10T00:00:00Z Duration: 01:01:21 Language of episode: English Presenter: Reuben Adams Guests: Professor Marc Deisenroth Producer: Reuben Adams