The age of AI: myths, risks and opportunities

AI is often described as an epoch-making technology. Alongside enthusiasm for the good it can do, there is also widespread worry about a host of harms. These range from fears about algorithmic bias further disadvantaging the already marginalised, to mass unemployment, and the spectre of a new Great Powers arms race.
In this talk, Stephen Cave relates the rise of AI to the great technological transformations of the past. He’ll ask what we can learn from both the benefits these technologies brought, and the disruption they caused - from peasant revolts to world wars. Drawing on these lessons of history, he will explore why some of the myths about AI are as dangerous as the technology itself. And cutting through the hype, he will explain what the real challenges are with the rise of AI, and what we can do about them.
Speakers
🎤 Stephen Cave is currently Director of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge, and from September 2023, will be the inaugural Director of the new Cambridge Institute for Technology and Humanity. His research focuses on the philosophy and ethics of technology, particularly AI, robotics and life-extension.
He is the author of Immortality (Crown, 2012), a New Scientist book of the year, and Should We Want To Live Forever (Routledge, 2023); and co-editor of AI Narratives (OUP, 2020), Feminist AI (OUP, 2023) and Imagining AI (OUP, 2023). He writes widely about philosophy, technology and society, including for the Guardian and Atlantic. He also advises governments around the world and has served as a British diplomat.