FOMO: Tony Prescott and ZENO, Eleanor Saitta

Tony Prescott presents on the robotic and AI technologies that are changing our understandings of the self, and that will change the lives we live and the relationships we have in the future. Today we can build robots that have some elements of a psychological self, such as a self-other distinction, or awareness of a personal past and a future. In the coming decades robots could have an inner life, memories, intentions, feelings, even empathy for others. Where does this leave the distinction between humans and robots? Can we have meaningful relationships with future robots or will that somehow diminish what it means to be human?

Tony Prescott is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Sheffield, Director of Sheffield Robotics, and a creator of animal-like robots. His background mixes psychology and brain theory with robotics and AI. His research is widely covered in the mainstream media, and he regularly speaks about the potential societal impacts of robotics.

This presentation includes demonstrations of humanoid robot and telepresence technologies.

The Q&A with Tony Prescott will be led by Boaz Levin.

Read more about Tony Prescott's humanoid robots.

Hacker, designer, artist, writer and barbarian Eleanor Saitta presents On Aesthetics as a Proper Superset of Evaluatory Modes. She writes:

"the patterns of human interactions, of stories and legends, and of the moves, countermoves, and eventualities of sociotechnical systems each describe particular and shared structures.  With deep operational experience, especially when formal methods are limited or temporally impossible, aesthetics takes over."

In this talk, Saitta will present three pieces plus a number of technical examples that sketch out different corners of this mode of sight.

Saitta makes a living and a vocation of understanding how complex, transdisciplinary systems operate and redesigning them to work, or at least fail, better. Among other things, Eleanor is a co-founder of the Trike project, Technical Director at the International Modern Media Institute, a member of the advisory boards at the Freedom of the Press Foundation and Geeks Without Bounds, a contributor to the Briar project, and freelance security architecture and strategy consultant.

The Q&A with Eleanor Saitta is led by Vera Tollman.

Multi-buy offer:

Single ticket events are priced at £12 each / £10 ICA Members and Concessions
For 2-4 events, tickets are £11 each / £9 ICA Members and Concessions
For 5-7 events, tickets are £10 each / £8 ICA Members and Concessions