Oxford University’s Department of Computer Science head, Prof Michael Wooldridge, will launch the new Qatar Centre for Artificial Intelligence (QCAI) next month.
The centre – an initiative of Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) – will develop and promote the use of cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) innovations for the betterment of human society.
Prof Wooldridge, who is also a member of QCRI's Scientific Advisory Committee, will present a lecture on “Artificial Intelligence: What Little We Know” on September 9 at 4pm at the HBKU Research Complex’s Multipurpose Hall. He will discuss the apparent boom and bust cycles in AI over its sixty-year history, arguing that despite these apparent cycles, there has been steady progress. Prof Wooldridge will also emphasise areas in which our AI knowledge is sparse, and will speculate about challenges for the field going forward.
QCRI executive director, Dr Ahmed Elmagarmid, described Prof Wooldridge as a pioneer who has carried out ground-breaking research in the area of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems. Prof Wooldridge is a recipient of one of the most prestigious research fellowships in Europe, an Advanced Grant by the European Research Council, and in 2006 also won an ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Autonomous Agents Research Award.
“We are privileged to have an expert of Prof Wooldridge’s calibre not only as another eminent member of QCRI’s scientific advisory committee, but also here for the launch of such an important initiative as QCAI,” Dr Elmagarmid said.
"Prof Wooldridge’s work in designing software programmes which can simulate interactive human decision-making and be practical and computationally efficient at the same time is likely to underpin future multi-functional AI systems," he added.
