FACE THE FUTURE
Artificial Intelligence holds increasing power and influence over our lives, but how can we harness its opportunities in a positive way?
It’s Science Week and the big topic of the year is Artificial Intelligence as we grapple to cope with the changes — both good and bad — that AI is making to our lives. Game Changer: AI & You is a new onehour documentary made in partnership with Science Foundation Ireland, and Anne-Marie Tomchak will be looking at how we need to adapt to cope with AI’s increasing power and influence.
There’s plenty of positives to take from the emergence of AI, in areas like health, education and climate action. But it’s not all good news as AI is also behind misinformation and deep fakes, and is also threatening jobs. What will happen if artificial intelligence becomes more intelligent than us?
Anne-Marie meets some of the biggest thinkers in the field of AI and talks to ordinary people whose lives are being impacted by it. In Cornwall, she meets Ameca, the world’s most advanced humanlike robot, and at Oxford University Anne-Marie talks to professor of computer science Micheal Wooldrige to discover his thoughts on how AI will impact the human race.
The arts is one area in which jobs are already seriously under threat. David Brophy conducts the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in a special performance of Silicon, a piece which was composed using AI, while Remie Michelle Clarke, an acclaimed voice actor, discovered her voice had been cloned using AI.
Media, too, is affected by AI. Leading deep fake detection company Reality Defender reveals the dangers that societies face as a result of misinformation and manipulated media, and Trinity professor Abeba Birhane talks about how AI is inherently biased because of the data it is trained upon, and what we must do to mitigate against that bias.
On a brighter note, David Nason demonstrates how AI tools can help the world become more accessible to those who are visually impaired and shows how it has made a contribution to groundbreaking research in the worlds of healthcare and climate action.
How can artificial intelligence complement human intelligence, and how can we equip ourselves to harness the great opportunities it offers while keeping hold of what is special and unique about being human in the first place? n Thursday, RTÉ One, 10.15pm.