Wendy Hall ThinkOut Podcast

In the second episode of the NISTH ThinkOut Podcast series, our host, Assoc Prof Sulfikar Amir, Director, NISTH speaks with Dame Wendy Hall, the UK’s first AI Skills Champion and Regius Professor of Computer Science, University of Southampton, UK.  From the discovery of the world wide web to the onset of AI, they discuss the conveniences and disruptions faced.

They ask and answer the most daunting question of current times, ‘Can we control AI?’.  We have grown overly dependent on the internet, especially with the pandemic, digital communication has become the norm. Also, when the whole world piled onto the Internet in order to do anything during the lockdowns, it stayed up and running which is a huge testament to the foresight of the Internet pioneers in terms of its design and in-built resilience and scalability.

But the Internet has never been under such threat and its whole future as a globally interconnected system is in much doubt for many different reasons. This podcast delves into the history of the discovery of the world wide web to the onslaught of AI. The ‘new kid on the block’, has been given full freedom to explore all spaces, with no governance in place. Since AI systems are designed and developed by humans, they can be programmed and trained with specific rules, algorithms, and data sets to perform certain tasks or behaviors. So can we control where it ventures into before it is too late? Find out…

Wendy Hall Newsnight AI Panel

WST CEO Professor Dame Wendy Hall was interviewed along with Professor Nick Bostrum on BBC’s Newsnight to discuss growing concerns around the use of AI, the need for regulation and the credibility behind claims of impending AI disaster.

The Video is a two-part piece with the Newsnight team discussing the background/context to the issue followed by a panel discussion with Prof. Nick Bostrom and Prof. Dame Wendy Hall

This video is provided under fair usage terms for news reporting, research and education.

Copyright (c) 2023 BBC Corporation

WebSci21 – Video Vault No 11 – The Future of the Web and Society

Chair, Wendy Hall leads panellists, Sinan Aral, Azeem Azhar, Noshir Contractor and Jaime Teevan in a discussion no less ambitious than to summarise what we learned from the last 15 years of Web Science and to predict what the next 15 years may hold.

Keynote 5

Abstract

Web Science, as an interdiscipline, is celebrating its 15th year of interrogating how the Web has shaped Society and how Society, in turn, has shaped the Web. During this period, we have witnessed avalanches of disruptive “exponential” technologies emerge from tectonic shifts between four (or more!) Internets with their various sensibilities and sensitivities concerning openness, commerce, authoritarianism and human rights. The closing panel reflects on how all of these socio-cultural-political developments (re)shape the agenda for Web Science over the next 15 years and beyond. Specifically, panelists will consider the future of Web Science research and what it means for practitioners, policy makers and publics.

Summary


Chair, Wendy Hall leads panellists in a discussion to summarise what we learned from the last 15 years of Web Science and to predict what the next 15 years may hold.

About the Video Vault Series

In partnership with the ACM we are pleased to be able to release a series of videos from the most recent Web Science Conference (ACM WebSci’21) that were previously only available to attendees of the conference.

The series will be released fortnightly and will include a selection of Keynote talks and Spotlight panel discussions.

Copyright / Links

This video is (c) 2021 provided under license from the ACM.

 

WebSci21 – Video Vault No 10 – The Post-API Age Reconsidered

In this talk, Deen Freelon talks about research data sourced from social media platforms to support computational research approaches in social science .

Keynote 5

Notes

Despite its brevity, the essay “Computational research in the post-API age” (Freelon, 2018) sparked an interdisciplinary discussion about options for collecting and analyzing social media data at a time when platforms were imposing tight restrictions on their formerly open APIs or closing them altogether. This keynote will explore some of what has and has not changed in the ensuing three years for computational researchers interested in social media data. In particular, it will focus on three key issues that have increased greatly in prominence since 2018: (1) the process of collaborating directly with social media companies on research projects, (2) the ethics of hacked and leaked datasets, and (3) ethno-racial and gender inequities in web- and computational social science.

Freelon, D. (2018). Computational research in the post-API age. Political Communication, 35(4), 665-668.

Summary


Deen Freelon talks about research data sourced from social media platforms to support computational research approaches in social science and whether both accessibility and representation have changed in the intervening period since his influential 2018 paper.

About the Video Vault Series

In partnership with the ACM we are pleased to be able to release a series of videos from the most recent Web Science Conference (ACM WebSci’21) that were previously only available to attendees of the conference.

The series will be released fortnightly and will include a selection of Keynote talks and Spotlight panel discussions.

Copyright / Links

This video is (c) 2021 provided under license from the ACM.

 

WebSci21 – Video Vault No 9 – Global Digital Infrastructure in a Post-Pandemic World

In this talk, Jennifer Zhu Scott talks about the need to create global inclusive data infrastructures and processes to address global issue

Keynote 4

Notes

Technology has become a transformative force in almost every aspect of our lives. It permeates our personal, economic, and political life. However, large for-profit tech companies or a handful of tech-savvy governments dominate the vast majority of digital services and solutions. Such a reality of our current data economy means highly concentrated data control and ownership.

The global pandemic is both a global public health and economic crisis. However, it also exposes the painful absence of a global digital infrastructure to provide critical services such as COVID-related data interoperability between countries to accelerate safe reopening. Billions of people are being vaccinated and tested for COVID. How should they prove and record their testing and vaccination data? Who should have access to and control such data? As the world reflects on a more responsible and inclusive data economy, how can we take the opportunity to build a global digital infrastructure that belongs to people from all countries?

This talk discusses the technical as well as the governance considerations for a viable global solution, and what might be the future implications to the global data economy.

Summary


Jennifer Zhu Scott talks about the need to create global inclusive data infrastructures and processes to address global issues such as Pandemics and future global opportunities. She notes that whilst individual businesses and governments must necessarily be part of solution, the benefits of such global systems should lie with the public (humanity) at large rather than only privately to a small number of mega-corps.

About the Video Vault Series

In partnership with the ACM we are pleased to be able to release a series of videos from the most recent Web Science Conference (ACM WebSci’21) that were previously only available to attendees of the conference.

The series will be released fortnightly and will include a selection of Keynote talks and Spotlight panel discussions.

Copyright / Links

This video is (c) 2021 provided under license from the ACM.

 

WebSci21 – Video Vault No 8 – Directions in Digital Government

This panel will tackle the ambitious challenge of examining the intersection of emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technology and the production of news media in an online environment.

Spotlight Panel 5

Notes

Worldwide, there are vast disparities in the ways in which digital government is enacted. The ‘splinternet’, or Balkanisation of the internet, heralds deep shifts in how people in different regions can engage digitally (see: O’Hara and Hall, The Four Internets). At the same time, approaches may vary quite drastically even within smaller regions, i.e. Estonia’s digital-first approach as compared with other European countries. This panel brings together practitioners from industry and government to share their expertise and experiences with digital transformation. Topics will include best and worst practices, what exactly the web enables for government, and, of course, the impact of Covid. We encourage audience participation in this panel, which promises to highlight opportunities as well as challenges as digital government continues to evolve.

Summary


Chair, Jay (Clare) Hooper, leads panellists, Honey Dacanay, Cyd Harrell, Gordon Ross, and Nigel Shadbolt in a discussion around the impact of diversity in regional government policy concerning access to the Web for their constituents and in delivering government via the Web.

About the Video Vault Series

In partnership with the ACM we are pleased to be able to release a series of videos from the most recent Web Science Conference (ACM WebSci’21) that were previously only available to attendees of the conference.

The series will be released fortnightly and will include a selection of Keynote talks and Spotlight panel discussions.

Copyright / Links

This video is (c) 2021 provided under license from the ACM.