Can AI Save Humanity?

“Where there is great power there is great responsibility.”—Winston Churchill.

Artificial intelligence (AI) captures global attention daily. The very topic fuels debates on its merits and drawbacks, and understandably, there is public fear about where AI is headed.
 
How is AI transforming the world we live in? And what can we expect in the future?
 
‘Can AI Save Humanity’ is a panel discussion with some of the world’s top scientists who use AI to address some of the most urgent global issues including health, climate change, sustainability, inequity and justice, and much more.
 
They marry biology with machines to monitor plants and wildlife, grow teeny human organs in petri dishes to personalise medicine for rare diseases, scan years of court documents to detect bias in court judgements, and use toaster-sized satellites in space to see the detail of places on Earth that are too harsh for humans to go to.
 
But at the end of it all — can AI actually save humanity? Panellist A/Prof Shane Keating says: “We need all the help we can get.”
 
‘The Surfing Scientist’ Ruben Meerman hosts this expert panel of scientists as they explore how AI is advancing their research while aiming to enhance human well-being and safeguard the future of our planet.

This event was held live on Tues 8 August at UNSW as part of National Science Week. It was co-hosted by the UNSW Data Science Hub (uDASH) and the School of Mathematics and Statistics, UNSW Science.