SRI Seminar Series returns for 2021–22 academic year
The SRI Seminar Series returns this September, bringing together the Schwartz Reisman research community and beyond for a robust exchange of ideas that advance scholarship at the intersection of technology and society. Seminars are held on a weekly basis (currently via Zoom due to COVID-19) and are free and open to the public. Each session is led by a leading or emerging scholar and features extensive discussion.
The Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society is pleased to announce the return of the SRI Seminar Series, a recurring event that brings together the Institute’s research community and beyond to present and discuss ideas that advance scholarship at the intersection of technology and society.
SRI Seminars are held on a weekly basis (currently via Zoom due to the COVID-19 pandemic), with each session featuring a leading or emerging scholar in the field of artificial intelligence. The event is divided equally between presentations by the invited lecturer and extensive discussion from participants, including SRI’s own research community, specialists from other institutions, students, and the general public.
The inaugural 2020-21 Seminar Series featured a remarkable slate of speakers, including SRI’s Director Gillian Hadfield, Associate Director Peter Loewen, Research Leads Wendy H. Wong, David Lie, and Denis Walsh, Faculty Affiliates Marzyeh Ghassemi, Avi Goldfarb, Rhonda McEwen, Nisarg Shah, Anita McGahan, Nicolas Papernot, Avery Slater, Aleksandar Nikolov, Shreyas Sekar, Ashton Anderson, Frank Rudzicz, Brian Cantwell Smith, Karina Vold, and Matt Ratto, and Postdoctoral Fellow Travis LaCroix. The series also featured guest presentations from Kevin Leyton-Brown (University of British Columbia), Deborah Hellman (University of Virginia), Sanmi Koyejo (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Sarah Mathew (Arizona State University), Joanna J. Bryson (Hertie School, Berlin), and Shannon Vallor (University of Edinburgh).
Seminar topics encompass a wide range of subjects within the broad theme of AI and society and the four conversations that guide SRI’s research, extending the Institute’s mandate to integrate knowledge across traditional boundaries and build human-centred solutions to the challenges posed by advanced technologies.
Previous sessions explored the impacts of AI and machine learning on governance and policy (with several seminars devoted to issues arising from the COVID-19 pandemic), healthcare, algorithmic fairness and decision making, data privacy, economics, computational social science, ontology and epistemology, bioethics, anthropology, and human rights.
The Seminar Series’ interdisciplinary scope is reflected in the presentations made by each week’s featured researcher, whose work often draws from multiple fields in order to forge new research questions and uncover innovative solutions. This focus on developing novel methods of inquiry through interdisciplinary collaboration is furthered by the insightful open dialogue between participants—all of which is captured in the event recordings that are publicly available on the video section of SRI’s website, as well as our new YouTube channel.
The 2021-22 season of the SRI Seminar Series will build on the previous year’s accomplishments, kicking off with presentations by SRI Faculty Affiliate and founding member of the Vector Institute Roger Grosse on September 15th, Visiting Scholar from the University of Texas at Austin Avinash (Avi) Collis on September 22nd, new Faculty Affiliate Boris Babic on September 29th, and Associate Director Lisa Austin on October 6th. Dates for additional speakers—including Faculty Affiliates Kelly Lyons, Chris Maddison, and Marsha Chechik, as well as Associate Director Sheila McIlraith—will be announced soon.
Upcoming SRI Seminar Series guests Roger Grosse, Avinash (Avi) Collis, Boris Babic, and Lisa Austin.
Want to learn more?
Explore our seminar back catalogue through our Videos page, or our SRI Seminar Series YouTube playlist.
To see information on all of SRI’s upcoming events, please visit our Events page.
Join SRI’s mailing list to receive our monthly enews digest and invitations to our events.
