Four of the world’s top experts on artificial intelligence (AI) will debate its pros and cons in Doha Debates' next live debate and try to reach common ground on how the world should proceed with it.
The Qatar Foundation (QF) production’s April 3 debate comes as AI increasingly reshapes day-to-day life for billions of people, revolutionising communications, transportation, workplaces, housing, and healthcare.
However, with AI also being blamed for job losses, data breaches, and even disasters, critics ask whether its benefits outweigh what they see as its negative consequences.
Debate participants will examine the merits and challenges of AI and, in the programme’s unique consensus-building majlis segment, discuss ways in which everyone can address these risks, despite their different perspectives.
Among those participating in the debate will be Joy Buolamwini, a Ghanaian-American computer scientist and digital activist at the MIT Media Lab of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Nick Bostrom, a Swedish philosopher, bestselling author, and director of the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute.
Doha Debates - second debate to discuss AI on April 3.
They will be joined by Muthoni Wanyoike, a Kenyan data scientist and organiser at Code for Africa and Nairobi Women in Machine Learning & Data Science; and Dex Torricke-Barton, a former communications executive at Facebook, Google and SpaceX, and a British bestselling author. Govinda Clayton, a conflict-resolution expert and researcher at Swiss science and technology university ETH Zurich, will be the debate’s bridge-building ‘connector’.
The debate at QF partner university Northwestern University in Qatar will be livestreamed on Facebook and Twitter. The majority of the debate’s in-person attendees will be students from universities at QF’s Education City, with the audience — including people participating digitally from around the world — playing an active role in shaping the debate and solutions.
Doha Debates’ moderator will be Ghida Fakhry, and Nelufar Hedayat will be the digital host for the debate livestream.
Amjad Atallah, managing director of Doha Debates, said, “This debate on AI is timely and critical. Our hope is that the debate will lead AI advocates and critics to agree, in at least a few ways, on AI’s path forward, while providing people everywhere with suggestions for how to maximise AI’s rewards and overcome its challenges.”
Doha Debates’ February 2019 debut debate at Education City, which examined the world’s worsening refugee crisis, garnered over four million views around the world.
People can register to attend the AI debate on www.dohadebates.com/ai. The livestream can be watched on Facebook and Twitter @DohaDebates at 7pm Qatar time, GMT +3 hours, and join the conversation using the hashtag #DearWorld.