I’m just back from a short trip to Dublin where i visited Design and Violence at the Science Gallery. I’ve LOTS to tell you about the exhibition. It’s dense, brilliant and sometimes also a bit disturbing. It challenges everything you think you know about what is good and what is bad, about design’s role in discriminating, torturing and drafting new forms of insidious brutality.

While i was in town, i had the chance to attend one of the Science Gallery’s evenings that explore impending global catastrophes. Called The End is Nigh, the series is not as dark and gloomy as the title suggests. Well, yes it is but there was also a lot of humour, irony and messages of hope in the discussions. The panel i attended, Automatic Disqualification: Will AI mean the end of work, or the end of humans?, explored the possible threats posed by artificial intelligence in the fields of employment, social inequalities and even the survival of the human race.

Video of THE END IS NIGH #2 – Automatic Disqualification: Will AI mean the end of work, or the end of humans?

The panelists were:
– Barry O’Sullivan, the deputy president of the European Association for Artificial Intelligence, who summed up the key concepts of AI, the extent of its presence in our daily life and the main threats that humanity might have to face in the near future,
– Niall Shanahan, a communications officer for IMPACT, Ireland’s largest public service trade union, focused on how/where/why AI is going to replace us in the work place,
– Mary Aiken, a forensic cyberpsychologist (probably the coolest title/job in the whole universe) whose work specializes in the impact of technology on human behaviour, pretty much dominated the evening. She talked about Google losing control of its search engine, lessons learnt and quickly forgotten in the area of AI, technology distracting us from the desire to be 21st century Luddites, moving from natural selection to algorithm selection, sexbots making human physical encounters IRL dispensable, etc.
– CJ Cullen, the Deputy Director of Communications and Information Services at the Irish Defence Forces, talked about (autonomous) killing machines.
The discussion was moderated by Anton Savage of Today FM.

Another panel looked at how we should deal with climate change: should we mitigate climate change now? Or should we wait for future technologies to solve our problems?

Video of THE END IS NIGH #3 – In Hot Water: Is Climate Change humanity’s Greatest Threat?

The panelists were: Cara Augustenborg, environmental scientist and lecturer at University College Dublin, Hugh Fitzpatrick, student in MSc Environmental Science TCD, and Barry McMullin, Associate Professor at DCU faculty of engineering and computing. The event was chaired by Constantine Boussalis, Assistant Professor in Political Science at Trinity College Dublin.

I missed that one unfortunately but i’m going to watch it tonight.

And i’m going to keep the first episode of the series, The End is Nigh: Asteroids, Comets, and Rogue Black Holes: Can Earth dodge a cosmic bullet?, for the weekend! This one looked at humanity’s best options to ensure survival in the event of planetary catastrophe.

Video of The End is Nigh 1: Asteroids, Comets, and Rogue Black Holes: Can Earth dodge a cosmic bullet?

The panelists were Mary Bourke, Assistant Professor of Geography at Trinity College Dublin, David McKeown, Assistant Professor of Design Innovation in the TCD School of Engineering and Niamh Shaw, engineer, scientist and artist.
The event was hosted by hosted by Joseph Roche, Assistant Professor of Science Education at TCD.

Photo on the homepage via Caribbean 360.