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Professor Rogers delivers 2024 Wheeler Lecture
6 November 2024
This distinguished annual event at Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge, is named after David Wheeler, one of the early pioneers of Computer Science.
On 23 October 2024, UCLIC Director, Professor Yvonne Rogers, gave this year's Wheeler Lecture on 'Supercharging the human mind with AI', and presented her current research, which attempts to open up people’s minds more through designing technology with them in mind.
Since the early 2020s there has been a call to arms for making AI systems more human-centred. What this means is widening the AI agenda from being largely technical in its aspirations to one that is concerned with humans and, more generally, with societal needs. A core part of this is a move towards responsible AI, that is reliable, competent and trustworthy.
Professor Rogers' vision is more radical: exploring how human-centred AI can empower us to achieve ever greater feats by developing new AI 'supertools' that don’t just make our tasks more efficient but expand our minds, daring us to think differently, while at the same time helping us break through the barriers that often stall or prevent creative leaps. An overarching goal is to design AI that augments what we do by suggesting, prompting, conjuring up, counter-arguing, nudging, probing and even acting as a sparring partner or a form of super-ego.