The BBC Christmas Lectures will feature a speech with AI robot, Ai-Da, alongside a professor of artificial intelligence at Oxford University.
The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are a collection of scientific sessions that have been held in the UK since 1825 and have been broadcast on the BBC since 1936.
Ai-Da will be the first humanoid robot to take part in the Christmas Lectures, speaking alongside AI professor, Mike Wooldridge.
AI professor Mike Wooldridge and Ai-Da
The robot has made appearances at the UN, the House of Lords, and the AI For Good conference this year at the first robotic press conference, and is well known for its painting and conversational talent.
In the speech, Ai-Da will paint and converse with Wooldridge, while he will explore the questions facing AI research and plans to unravel the myths about how the technology works.
“Artificial intelligence has a huge potential to make all our lives better, but it does not come without risk and, like all areas of science, advances in the field could create losers as well as winners,” commented Wooldridge.
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“AI is a topic that it’s vital we explore, examine, and question together,” he added. “[It is] an outstanding opportunity to do this with a large audience, particularly young people who are going to have AI in their lives for far longer than anyone else.”
Ai-DA Robot said: “I’m thrilled to talk with Professor Mike Woodridge during his Royal Institute Christmas lectures on Artificial Intelligence. As an artist robot, I’ll be painting his portrait as well as engaging in dialogue that I hope with inspire the upcoming generation in a fusion of art and technology.”
The Christmas Lectures will be filmed in the Royal Institutions theatre this week, and broadcast on BBC Four and iPlayer in the week between Christmas and New Year.
While Ai-Da makes its case to the world, the first humanoid robot factory is to open in the US soon, with the capability to produce more than 10,000 robots per year.
