Royal Society and DeepMind announce 2018 lecture series

The Royal Society and DeepMind will work together to produce a public lecture series in 2018 exploring cutting edge AI research and its implications for society.

The lecture series aims to help open up a conversation with leading experts about how AI may affect people’s daily lives, its implications, and how companies, organisations and public institutions should respond.

Lectures will be delivered by leading figures in the world of AI research and those considering its societal consequences.

The lectures are part of the Royal Society’s ongoing policy work on machine learning and AI.  A report launched earlier this year - Machine Learning: the power and promise of computers that learn by example - called for action in a number of key areas over the next five to ten years to create an environment of “careful stewardship” that can help ensure that the benefits of this technology are felt broadly. It also called for an informed public debate about what we want machine learning to do, and how the benefits are distributed

Professor Peter Donnelly FRS, chair of the report’s working group and Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics and Professor of Statistical Science at the University of Oxford, said at the time of launch, “Machine learning can drive advances in healthcare, teaching, transport, and more, supporting better public services and boosting the economy. We have the opportunity now, as a society, to ensure that machine learning can bring the maximum benefit to the greatest number of people.”