The Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience (IHRR) presents: AI: What keeps you up at night?

Please register for the online zoom event here.

IHRR welcomes you to this University-wide event on Artificial Intelligence. AI is introducing changes to the way we research, what we research and how we make decisions. At this event, we want to explore how researchers use AI, what researchers worry about, and explore the ethical implications and conceptual challenges of AI. Its capacity for big data processing and modelling can open opportunities for risk reduction and resilience building, enabling crisis prediction, scenario modelling, data-driven decision making, the optimization of resource allocation and logistics and the detection of misinformation. However, it also introduces new types of crises for cybersecurity, autonomous systems in warfare and could deepen societal divides in healthcare, law enforcement, financial services and particularly in times of crisis when resources and decision-making are critical.

13:00-13:10: Welcome by Hanna Ruszczyk, IHRR 

13:10-14:00: 7-8 minute presentations by panel speakers: 

1. Professor Bruce Malamud (Hazard and Risk):  AI in hazard, risk and resilience 
2. Professor Claire Warwick (English, Digital Humanities). Unknown unknowns: what we (don't) know about public attitudes to AI, and why that matters? 
3. Professor Kostas Nikolopoulos (DUBS) The Computer and the Brain; part II - the return of the Brain... 
4. Dr Noura Al-Moubayed (Computer Science, VIViD research group, Associate Professor)  High Accuracy, Low Consensus: Navigating the Trust Dilemma in ML Models
5. Dr Ludovico Rella (Human Geography, PDRA) AI between existential risk and technologies of risk 
6. Professor Alexandra Cristea (Department of Computer Science, Founder of the AI group in Computer Science) TBC

14:00-14:20: Q&A amongst panel speakers (Host: Rebekah Harries, IHRR)

14:20-15:00: All participants: Q&A to Panel, General Discussion and Comments (Host: Ellen Robson, IHRR)

15:00 – 16:00: Coffee and Tea (IHRR Research Hub Room, Room W246--first room on left after you enter the IHRR/Geography building) 

Selected Readings 

Carbonneau C and Bizzi S (2023) Global mapping of river sediment bars, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.5739 

van Toorn G, Redden J, Dencik L and Brand J (2024, 26 June) Labour's AI vision: Can technology really end poverty? [Blog Series by Academics Stand Against Poverty] Available at: https://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2024/06/26/labours-ai-vision-can-technology-really-end-poverty/

Von Neumann, J. (1959) The Computer and the Brain: John Von Neumann. Yale University Press. Available at HERE. 

Watson, M., Hasan, B.A.S. and Al Moubayed, N., 2022. Agree to disagree: When deep learning models with identical architectures produce distinct explanations. In Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (pp. 875-884). Available at: https://openaccess.thecvf.com/content/WACV2022/html/Watson_Agree_To_Disagree_When_Deep_Learning_Models_With_Identical_Architectures_WACV_2022_paper.html