Watch now: DeepMind Founder’s Tanner Lecture at Oxford’s Institute for Ethics in AI

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Demis Hassabis delivering his Tanner Lecture to an audience in the Sheldonian Theatre

Watch now: DeepMind Founder’s Tanner Lecture at Oxford’s Institute for Ethics in AI

A lecture by Dr Demis Hassabis on how Artificial Intelligence is accelerating scientific discovery is now available to watch on the Oxford University Institute for Ethics in AI’s YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jocWJiztxYA

The lecture was held in the Sheldonian Theatre on 17 May 2022 in front of a packed audience, as part of The Obert C. Tanner Lectures on Artificial Intelligence and Human Values series. Dr Hassabis founded and leads DeepMind, the world’s leading AI research company and now an independent subsidiary of Alphabet. Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt, Principal of Jesus College and Professorial Research Fellow in Computer Science at Oxford, introduced him and the lecture was followed by a Q&A with members of the audience.

Professor John Tasioulas, Director of the Institute for Ethics in AI, said: “A core aim of the Institute is to bring together world-leading academics and the practitioners at the cutting edge of AI development. This lecture was a perfect example of that mission in action – there was a real buzz in the room among the many hundreds of attendees, and I am delighted that an even wider audience can now enjoy it online.

“Demis offered a fascinating insight from the front line into how AI has already accelerated scientific discovery. Importantly, he also reflected on the ethical considerations that must accompany its future development, which is something we are thinking deeply about at the Institute.”

The Tanner Lectures were established by the American scholar, industrialist, and philanthropist, Obert Clark Tanner. The Institute for Ethics in AI brings together world-leading philosophers and other experts in the humanities with the technical developers and users of AI in academia, business and government. It is part of the Philosophy Faculty and will be housed in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities at the University of Oxford.

The Centre and Institute have been made possible by a £175 million gift to the University from Stephen A. Schwarzman, Chairman, CEO and Co-founder of Blackstone, one of the world's leading investment firms.

A wide range of public events discussing the ethics of AI can be found on the Institute’s YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkUb51mWN9-EenLV-ip-Wwg/videos

Further upcoming events can be found on the Institute’s website: https://oxford-aiethics.ox.ac.uk/institute-events