Politics of Life unleashes AI in May event

THE May installation of The Politics of Life – This Stuff Matters will host two leading AI experts, Peter Waters and Bill Simpson Young of the Gradient Institute at M|Arts, on May 15.

The ‘Navigating the Promise and Perils of Artificial Intelligence’ session will explore the vexed world of AI and aim to help the audience understand its strengths and limitations.

Founder and organiser Dr Richard Hil admits he had started to use Chat GPT sparingly and with the utmost caution.

“It’s easy to get sucked in, to do the ‘hard’ work, to invent stuff,” Hil said.

“Most of us are a bit nervous about AI and the little we know about it.

“We’re aware that it has enormous potential, but we’re also cognisant that it harbours danger,” he said.

Waters is a Harvard-trained lawyer and a leading telecommunications and technology legal expert and is a member of the international board of the Australian Research Centre of Excellence in Automated Decision-Making.

Co-founder and chief executive of the non-profit Gradient Institute that works to build safety, ethics, accountability and transparency into Al systems, Simpson-Young is a member of the NSW Government’s Al Review Committee and has advised the Australian Government on regulation.

Hil said that AI implications were chilling, as were the many identified dangers such as job losses resulting from automation, algorithmic biases, deep fakes, privacy issues, weapons automisation, and political manipulations.

“The more optimistic among us point to AI’s potential in enhancing healthcare, climate mitigation, transportation customer service, financial services, and scientific discoveries,” Hil said.

“One thing’s for sure: generative AI, which draws on existing data to create content, will alter the world as we know it, just as the internet has transformed everyday life.

“It’s also important to ask who really benefits from these technologies, who loses out, and how they should be regulated, if at all,” Hil said.

Pre-booked tickets are $10 or $15 on the door.

Doors open at 5.30 pm, with a poetry reading by local poet Jedda Winkworth at 6.45 pm. The AI conversation will begin at 7.00 pm and will be followed by a Q&A.

For information and tickets, visit trybooking.com/events/landing/1389989