The NCU Year of Science Popularisation – a day with AI

Following the summer break, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń invites you to further events organised as part of the Year of Science Popularisation at NCU. On Wednesday 23 September, at the Collegium Maximum, we will be discussing artificial intelligence.

The event will begin with a debate on how artificial intelligence is changing our everyday lives. Although it may seem that we use it in a controlled manner, in reality it is with us from morning till night – it suggests what to listen to and what to watch, selects the content we see on social media, helps us plan our journeys, and even supports our shopping, studying and work. It is also increasingly involved in helping us make much more serious decisions. But are we always aware of how it influences our choices?

The event will be chaired by Dr Jagoda Jaskulska from the Faculty of Law and Administration at Nicolaus Copernicus University (NCU), and the meeting will also feature guests from NCU's Interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Technology in Society. It begins at 5.00 pm.

The debate will not mark the end of the day’s discussions on artificial intelligence. At 6.30 pm, Piotr Jarczyk, president of the Lucid Academy Foundation, will take the floor to deliver a lecture entitled ‘Alignment – the most important word you don’t know’. The speaker will point out that in discussions about artificial intelligence, the question of whether AI makes mistakes often arises. We rarely consider what happens when it is right, yet still does something other than what we intended. This second issue is currently occupying the world’s leading researchers and has yet to be resolved. It does, however, have a name: a single English word that we will not hear in the media, though it may determine how this story ends.

This lecture will not be yet another discussion of the threat we perceive in a machine uprising. It will address something far more difficult to imagine and far closer to home: a boundary that is obvious to us, but which for the system is simply another obstacle.

Admission to the event is free. Both sessions will also be streamed live on the UMK TV channel on YouTube.

Further information on events taking place as part of the Year of Science Popularisation at NCU can be found on the website.

Facebook event