Gresham College provides outstanding educational talks and videos for the public free of charge. There are over 2,500 videos available on our website. Your support will help us to encourage people's love of learning for many years to come.
In 431 BCE the Athenian statesman Pericles delivered one of the most influential speeches of all time, his Epitaphios or Funeral Oration. The occasion was at the funeral of the first Athenian soldiers to lose their lives in the Peloponnesian War.
Professor Wilks will describe the Semantic Web and its origin in annotation methods from the humanities and will argue the need for this form of AI to manage a lifetime’s information on the web.
Professor Wilks will discuss the notion of an artificial Companion, a long-term software agent that could be present in any device: a screen, handbag or even a furry toy - and which understands the person it 'lives' with.
Simon Lancaster believes that the successful speechwriter is less of a puppeteer and more of an impressionist. In his talk, he will share a number of stories and anecdotes from his time as speechwriter.
Alan Turing famously proposed a test of artificial intelligence. What has been achieved? Stephen Hawking has said that real artificial intelligence will mean the end of mankind. Is that a real threat? Are there limits to what a silicon brain might do?
In the long run, in an Internet society, it is claimed, we will neither need nor want doctors, teachers, accountants, architects, the clergy, consultants, lawyers, and many others, to work as they did in the 20th century. - Is this true?