The future of things

We think we know what shapes are, right? Maybe you think of squares, circles, ovals? But nothing in nature has these shapes, even away from the atomic scale. Dolphins are not made of spheres and cubes. And yet I want my computer to understand what shape dolphins are. Andrew will talk about how we are resolving these questions using tools derived from the old East Anglian word “spline” which have been used since the 50s to design shapes, but are only now being used to understand shape.

How does data really make a difference to daily life, to life on the street? Alex will present insights gleaned from a year ­long study through engagements and design interventions with the residents of Tenison Road, in Cambridge. Residents have made sense of and used their own data and he will also show that it is tightly bound up with Tenison Road’s ideas of community and place. Data matters when it takes shape in the form of things and knits its way into everyday life.

It is easy to get publicity for Artificial Intelligence right now: one shouts "SINGULARITY!" and waves one's arms about.
However, Sean does not believe we will be seeing human?level AI in our lifetime, and in this talk he will explain why.

How does artificial intelligence implement thinking? There are two main modes of thinking: "System 1" is parallel and intuitive. "System 2" is sequential and logical. Emilio will talk on how artificial intelligence has evolved in implementing these two modes of thinking, and how this implementation is deeply linked with the evolution of computer hardware.