AI, the Universe and Everything

Join Suzie Sheehy and Toby Walsh in a wide ranging conversation covering everything from particle physics and the experiments which have uncovered the structure of the universe to how AI is transforming science.

Suzie Sheehy is a physicist and Associate Professor at Melbourne University and visiting lecturer at Oxford University. Her research in accelerator physics addresses both curiosity-driven and applied areas, currently focused on developing new particle accelerators for medical applications. An award-winning public speaker and science communicator, Suzie is dedicated to sharing science beyond the academic community: from broadcast and media, keynotes and public lectures, to her 2018 TED talk which has been viewed over 1.9M times. The Matter of Everything is her first book.

Toby Walsh is Chief Scientist at UNSW.ai, UNSW’s new AI Institute. He is a Laureate Fellow and Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence in the School of Computer Science and Engineering at UNSW Sydney, and he is also an adjunct fellow at CSIRO Data61. He was named by the Australian newspaper as a “rock star” of Australia’s digital revolution. Professor Walsh is a strong advocate for limits to ensure AI is used to improve our lives. He has been a leading voice in the discussion about autonomous weapons (aka “killer robots”), speaking at the UN in New York and Geneva on the topic. His advocacy in this area has led to him being “banned indefinitely” from Russia. He appears regularly on TV and radio, and has written three books on AI for a general audience, the most recent entitled Machines Behaving Badly.