Gibbons Lecture - Our future with AI

 

There’s been dramatic progress in learning skills, such as object recognition, translation and speech, and in difficult but uncomplicated tasks like playing chess, Go and video games. Traditional AI focused on improving complex tasks, using knowledge and reasoning, that have driven human success. 

In this first talk, Professor Michael Witbrock from the School of Computer Science at the University of Auckland will discuss these paths to broad AI and explore Aotearoa’s potential to make sure of a positive outcome.

Location | This lecture will be live-streamed on Wed Oct 30 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM NZDT

Register now 

Will robotic vision ever fully replace human vision?

Associate Professor Patrice Delmas from the Department of Computer Science, University of Auckland is giving a free public lecture this Thursday, May 17.

In this talk, Patrice will introduce the topic of computer vision, its current status and the many challenges that have been faced. He will then discuss some parallels between human vision and computer vision, and the major differences in capability.  Finally, he will lean on his experience to describe a wide range of real-world problems, attempted solutions and ensuing failures or successes, in the context of the New Zealand economy and environment.

Drinks and nibbles will be served from 6pm at 260.088 Level 0 Foyer, Owen G Glenn Building University of Auckland. The Lecture commences at 6.30pm. 

Find out more information about the Gibbons Lecture Series.

If you cannot attend the lecture you can watch it live or later here.

Robotics research in New Zealand - free public lecture

Mike Shatford, Managing Director of Design Energy Limited, Christchurch is giving a free public lecture this Thursday, May 10 at 6:30pm. Mike's talk aims to close the loop between academia and industry; reporting on successes – where, and how, robotics is serving our target market, and where there are gaps and opportunities for both the originators of new technology and the end-users it will serve. 
Drinks and nibbles will be served from 6pm at 260.088 Level 0 Foyer, Owen G Glenn Building University of Auckland. The Lecture commences at 6.30pm. 

Find out more information about the Gibbons Lecture Series.

 If you cannot attend the lecture you can watch it live or later here.

Robotics research in New Zealand - free public lecture

Professor Bruce MacDonald, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Auckland will give a free public lecture on May 3rd 2018 at 6:30pm, Venue: 260.092 (Owen G Glenn Building 3), Level 0, University of Auckland.

Bruce says: "We are constantly being told that robotic technology is soon going to dramatically change our lives. Indeed, it is true that robots, AI, machine-learning and automation have become much more affordable and capable in recent years. With less fanfare, at the same time, farms, factories, homes and offices have felt a strong need to automate some tasks that are currently done manually. As well as machinery, this may involve measurement and monitoring, helping humans make decisions or taking over some parts of decision-making. This presentation will describe international trends and some of the ongoing work and future directions for robotics research in New Zealand."

Drinks and nibbles will be served from 6pm at 260.088 Level 0 Foyer, Owen G Glenn Building. Lecture commences at 6.30pm.

Watch the lecture online live or on demand.

Find out more information about the Gibbons Lecture Series.

Free public lectures in Auckland

The annual free public Gibbons lecture series will take place again this May. This year's theme is robotics. News concerning robots, the tasks that they are able to perform and how they are expected to interact with humans, is widespread. Our Gibbons Lectures' speakers tackle this topic on 3, 10, 17 and 24 May. Join us for refreshments before each lecture from 6pm at: The University of Auckland 260.088, Level 0 Foyer, Owen G Glenn Building. 

3 May – Robotics research in New Zealand
Bruce MacDonald
Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Faculty of Engineering

The University of Auckland

10 May – Robotics in industry
Mike Shatford
Managing Director
Design Energy Limited

Christchurch

17 May – Will robotic vision ever fully replace human vision?
Patrice Delmas
Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science
Faculty of Science

The University of Auckland

24 May – Can we be friends with robots?
Elizabeth Broadbent
Associate Professor in the Department of Psychological Medicine
Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences

The University of Auckland

Free public lecture on computer science

The final lecture in the series of free public Gibbons lectures takes place this Thursday 26th May at 6:30pm. This week's lecture titled: Using IT to improve health delivery for management of chronic illness is given by my colleague Professor Jim Warren, Professor of Health Informatics, Department of Computer Science, The University of Auckland. It has been suggested that more could be done to improve human health by better delivering what we already know, rather than by developing further medical knowledge. There are enormous gaps in health delivery, including inadequate detection of individuals at high risk and mismanagement of risk factors once they are identified. IT can help through the use of decision support systems that compute estimates of risk and recommend appropriate management. IT can also serve to make screening for risk factors more systematic, and consumers can receive direct 'eTherapy' for problems such as anxiety or to aid in quitting smoking.
More details about the talk, time and venue are here. If you were unable to attend the previous week's lectures they can be streamed from here. 

Free public lectures on computer science

As the evening draw in it's once again time for the annual series of Gibbons Lectures at the University of Auckland. Each year the four weekly lectures follow a theme; this year's is titled: The artificial human body - by computer design, exploring how computers are being used to model various aspects of the human body, from our genome to medical imaging. The first lecture on Computational Physiology is by Distinguished Professor Peter Hunter, the Director of Auckland Bioengineering Institute on Thursday 5th of May at 6:30pm in the Owen G Glenn Building room 260.092 (OGGB3) on Level 0. Further information about all the lectures can be found here.

From Interaction to Understanding

This Thursday evening's Gibbons Lecture is by Mark Billinghurst of the Human Interface Laboratory New Zealand, at The University of Canterbury. The lecture titled From Interaction to Understanding  will focus on Empathic computing where computers can recognise and understand emotions. The lecture is this Thursday the 21st at 6:00pm for a 6:30pm start. Click the lecture link for full venue details and if you can't attend the lecture will be streamed live and after the event.

Innovation in Airline Human Computer Interaction

This Thursday evening's Gibbons Lecture is by Paul McGlashan, Chief Architect, for Air New Zealand. The lecture titled Innovation in Airline Human-Computer Interaction: from ALC to IoT  will describe how Air New Zealand has taken control of its IT in-house and has been correspondingly more innovative than its competitors. The lecture is this Thursday the 14th at 6:00pm for a 6:30pm start. Click the lecture link for full venue details and if you can't attend the lecture will be streamed live and after the event.

Beyond Touch: using everyday tools as input devices

This Thursday's Gibbons lecture titled Beyond Touch: using everyday tools as input devices is by Dr Beryl Plimmer of the Department of Computer Science at The University of Auckland. The lecture is this Thursday the 7th at 6:00pm for a 6:30pm start. Click the lecture link for full venue details and if you can't attend the lecture will be streamed live and after the event.

From the Mouse to the Smartphone and Beyond

It's that time of the year again, as the nights draw in the free public Gibbons Lectures in Auckland take place. The first lecture is this Thursday the 30th at 6:00pm for a 6:30pm start. Every year the lecture series has a theme and this year it's human computer interaction. The first lecture is by Professor Mark Apperley and titled From the Mouse to the Smartphone and Beyond: tracing the development of human-computer interaction. Click the lecture link for full venue details and if you can't attend the lecture will be streamed live and after the event.

Public Key Cryptography: Computation, Cash and John Nash

This Thursday Associate Professor Steven Galbraith, a leading researcher in computational number theory and the mathematics of public key cryptography, will give a free public lecture at the University of Auckland. Steven has published over 50 papers in this area, written one book, and edited three conference proceedings. He has a Bachelors degree from the University of Waikato, a Masters from Georgia Tech in Atlanta, and he completed his PhD at Oxford University in 1996. He has had post-doc or visiting researcher positions at Royal Holloway University of London (UK), British Telecom Research (Ipswich, UK), University of Waterloo (Canada), Institute for Experimental Mathematics (Essen, Germany), University of Bristol (UK) and Hewlett-Packard Research Labs (Bristol, UK). He has been at the University of Auckland since 2009.
The lecture titled "Public Key Cryptography: Computation, Cash and John Nash" will explain how security can be enhanced by the use of hard computational problems from Mathematics. This was the basis for the creation of public key cryptography in the 1970s. Public key cryptography has many applications in information security, such as secure internet shopping, digital signatures and secure automatic software updates. We will see how digital signatures have now become a crucial component of the electronic currency bitcoin. Cryptography is, of course, of great interest to national security. Recently (only declassified in 2012) it has been revealed that John Nash (subject of the film A Beautiful Mind) sent a letter to the United States National Security Agency in 1955. His letter outlined new concepts that anticipated by decades fundamental notions in computational complexity and modern cryptography.
When: 6pm (free refreshments) for 6.30pm start, Thursday 15th May, 2014
Where: Owen G Glenn Building, Room OGGB3/260-092

Note that there is public parking in the basement of the Owen G Glenn Building at 12 Grafton Road.

The latest on the story of CAD/CAM

The final free public lecture in 2013's Gibbons Lecture series is all about CAD/CAM - the acronym  for Computer Assisted Design and Computer Assisted Manufacturing. CAM involves robotics but CAD is the application of Computer Graphics to Engineering – in fact, at one time it was Computer Graphics but it has advanced far beyond these simple beginnings. Engineering Computer Graphics is the topic of our last Gibbons Lecture on May 23 which will be delivered by Professor Gordon Mallinson from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Auckland. Full details of the time and venue are here. If you cannot attend the lecture will be streamed live and after the event.

Computer Games: Friend or Foe? Free public lecture

Our next Gibbons Lecture on 16th May will be delivered by Dr. Burkhard Wuensche from our Department of Computer Science at The University of Auckland. Dr. Wuensche will be discussing the relationship between computer gaming and computer graphics.  Dr. Wuensche has an extensive history of research publications that he often illustrates with whimsical examples.We particuarly like his generated images of rabbits, a bit late for Easter, but cute never-the-less.
    For more information on the venue, date and time visit the Gibbons Lectures website. The lecture will be streamed live and after the event if you cannot attend in person.

Oscar winner to give free public lecture in Auckland

Our next Gibbons Lecture on 9th May will be delivered by John Lewis of Victoria
University of Wellington and Weta Digital Research. His talk is titled “Why Academic Research Matters in Visual Effects.  John was a recipient of a 2103 Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science Technical Achievement Award. 
    He has contributed to the use of computer graphics in films including Avatar, The Matrix sequels, and Forrest Gump. Several of his algorithms have been adopted in the film and games industries and incorporated in commercial graphics software packages. He has interest in rendering images of computer generated humans to make them more life-like – in the following images one is a photograph of a human and the other generated from a computer model – can you tell which is which?

    Full details of the venue, date and time are provided here. If you can't attend the lecture will be streamed live and after the event.

A date for your diary...

The lead lecturer for our Department’s Gibbons Lectures this year is Professor Geoff Wyvill from the University of Otago, who will speak on “A Better Paintbrush.”  Geoff is one of the founders of Computer Graphics animation in New Zealand and is always an entertaining speaker. Way back in the 1980s before computer animation was used in movies Geoff gave our department a showing of short video “The Great Train Rubbery” that explored creating images from intersecting spheres that moved on trajectories – unfortunately, all we have to show now is a still from the movie. Back in Dunedin Geoff was one of the founders of Animation Research Ltd., that has made many memorable videos, including the famous (in New Zealand) “Bluebird Penguins.” [Click here for a video]
   The date for your diary is Thursday 2nd May 6:30pm. If you're not in Auckland the lecture will be streamed online. Full details of the talk, date, time and venue are available here.

Oscars and Gibbons 2013

You might have noticed that folks at Weta Digital in Wellington have just been nominated for three Oscars . If not, have a look here. You might perhaps have wondered how it could be that New Zealand has developed such expertise. If so, place a note in your diary to attend our free public 2013 Gibbons Lectures in May - Picture This! Computer Graphics in New Zealand. Our annual lecture series on IT topics is in memory of our late colleague and Head of Department, Peter Gibbons. Read about past lecture topics here.

2012 Gibbons Lecture Series – The #Turing Legacy

Auckland University's Department of Computer Science is holding a series of public lectures to commemorate Alan Turing's centenary as part of the Alan Turing Year.

Alan Matheson Turing who was born in 1912 is now widely accepted as one of the most important founders of both theoretical and practical computing.Turing's work was the basis for many areas of computing research and development that are still on-going. The Gibbons lectures for 2012 will involve local speakers discussing four topics in the rough order of Turing's involvement during his lifetime.

• Apr 26: Alan Turing and the Unsolvable Problem: To Halt or Not to Halt - That is the Question by Prof Cristian S. Calude. Professor Calude from our department will talk on the Theory of Computing, the first area for which Turing is renowned and where Cristian has made many contributions himself.
• May 3: Alan Turing and the Secret Cyphers: Breaking the German Codes at Bletchley Park by Prof Jack Copeland. Professor Copeland from the University of Canterbury, is one of the world's leading experts on Turing and will address Turing's secret involvement with Cryptanalysis during WW2. Note: This talk has been pre-recorded and will be webcast only.
• May 10: Alan Turing and the Computing Engine: Turing's achievements in practical computing by Professor Brian Carpenter & Professor Bob Doran. Turing emerged from the war with a burning interest in building a practical electronic computer - this is covered in the third talk by Professors Carpenter and Doran of our department who have had a long interest in the origins of computing.
• May 17: Alan Turing and the Artificial Brain: The Development of Artificial Intelligence by Associate Professor Ian Watson of our department. As computers started to become available Turing turned his interest to using them to perform intellectual tasks rather than just calculation. He is recognized as the founder of Artificial Intelligence - the subject to be covered in this final lecture.

If you are in Auckland, New Zealand you are welcome to attend. The lectures are free, and are preceded by complimentary refreshments. Click here for further details, venue and times.