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Making New Plants: A History

This lecture examines the work of Hugo de Vries, a Dutch botanist who was one of the first to claim that science would allow plants and animals to be designed to order.

Can Machines Be Conscious, and Would It Matter If They Were?

The question “Will AI artefacts ever be conscious?” was raised by Turing seventy years ago, and will not go away even though no one quite knows what it means, nor how we would know they were conscious if they were.

Gardens of Empire: The Role of Kew and Colonial Botanic Gardens

Sydney’s botanic garden, founded in the early nineteenth century, was expected to ship new plants 'home' to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, from where they could be transplanted to other colonial gardens, to see if they could become valuable new crops to enrich the British Empire.

AI Weapons, War and Ethics

This lecture will explore fully autonomous weapons, the products of AI technology, and the arguments for and against their use.

Experimental Gardens from Francis Bacon to Today

This lecture will begin with Bacon’s imagined garden, then consider the long-term promise of the experimental or scientific garden, which would eventually lead to today’s biotechnologies.

Is There Danger Ahead With AI: Superintelligence, Ethics, Work, Leisure and Automation

Professor Wilks will discuss the argument that ‘superintelligent’ AI may turn against us, as Hawking and Bostrom have warned.

Food Security: A Poisoned Chalice of Plant Adaptation

We will need an aggressive strategy to ensure the safety of agricultural yields and food in the future especially in drought- prone and even temperate zones.

Climate Change and Deadly Plants

"We've all heard about climate change... but what is happening...

The Search for Meaning on the Web: The Semantic Web and Managing a Lifetime's Information

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.

Making Information Personal: Companions

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.

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