The world is in the midst of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution - from cameras at supermarket checkouts that identify what type of vegetables we buy to ChatGPT that can write an essay, AI becomes ever more powerful and pervasive. Will the future be an AI paradise or a purgatory? You’ll hear about the history of AI development with its roots in WWII codebreaking through to the recent marvels in generative AI. There will be demonstrations of the latest AI systems such as ChatGPT and DALL-E. We'll also be discussing the many risks we face in an AI future, and how they might be managed.
- Harari, Yuval Noah. Nexus A brief history of Information Networks, 2024
- Wolfram, Stephen. What is ChatGPT Doing and Why Does It Work?, 2023
- Capek, Karel. War With The Newts, 1936
- The quest for thinking machines - a brief historical overview
- Generative AI - a new sentience? How does ChatGPT and DALL-E work? What can they do? How intelligent are they really?
- What could possibly go wrong? What are the key risks of this new technology
- Managing those risks - can we enjoy the benefits of AI yet avoid the perils?
By the end of this course, students should be able to:
- Understand the progression of AI from WWII until today.
- Have some understanding how generative AI such as ChatGPT work
- Understand what are they key risks that have been identified with AI, and the range of views on their likelihood
- Be aware of some of the risk governance approaches that different countries are persuring
