Keynote Speakers – ICRES 2023

Jóhanna Vigdís Guðmundsdóttir

Self-Preservation in a Brave New World: Using AI´s Potential for the Future of one of the Oldest Languages in the World.

As General Manager for the non-profit organization Almannarómur, Jóhanna Vigdís Guðmundsdóttir lead the Icelandic Government initiative on language technology from November 2018 to April 2023. She was in charge of a 14m EUR investment in language technology and artificial intelligence, working with a team of 60 specialists and scientists within various fields who built the language technology infrastructure for Icelandic. A critical part of that role included building bridges to leading international technology companies, with the aim of Icelandic being included in their solutions – from Meta, OpenAI, and Microsoft to local startups. Previously, Jóhanna has been in leadership roles at Reykjavik University, The Reykjavík Arts Festival, and Straumur Investment Bank. She holds a BA in Literary Theory from the University of Iceland, an MSc in Cultural Studies from The University of Edinburgh, and an MBA from Reykjavík University

Minoru Asada

RoboEthics: today and tomorrow

Minoru Asada received the B.E., M.E., and Ph.D. degrees in control
engineering from Osaka University, Japan, in 1977, 1979, and
1982, respectively. He became a Full Professor of Mechanical
Engineering for Computer-Controlled Machinery with Osaka University,
in 1995, and was a Professor with the Department of Adaptive Machine
Systems, Osaka University during 1997-2018. Since 2019, he has been a
specially-appointed professor as a strategic adviser for the Symbiotic
Intelligent System Research Center Open and Transdisciplinary Research
Initiatives, Osaka University. In April, 2021, he became a vice
president of International Professional University of Technology in
Osaka (keeping the position at Osaka University).

Madeleine de Cock Buning

Governing Generative AI: a disinformation perspective
Generative AI, such as brought to society’s attention by means of ChatGPT, is promising in many ways. Given its abilities, Generative AI could greatly contribute to the availability and accessibility of knowledge within all layers of society. At the same time, the outputs of Generative AI can potentially spread disinformation with impactful consequences for societies when it would be taken for “truth”.

Prof. mr. drs. Madeleine de Cock Buning is Professor of Copyright, Mass media- and Communication Law at Utrecht University, and part-time Professor Digital Politics Society & Economy at the School of Transnational Governance of the European University Institute (STG/EUI) in Florence. Madeleine is furthermore appointed as Chair of the Advisory Board to the European Digital Media Observatory, where she was appointed to study disinformation and fake news, and to propose solutions.

Jan Kleijssen

AI and Human Rights – the need for global standards

Jan Kleijssen was born in 1958 in Almelo, The Netherlands. He studied International Law at Utrecht State University (LLM in 1981) and International Affairs at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa (MA 1982). He then did his military service as a Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Netherlands Navy.
Jan joined the Council of Europe in 1983 as a Lawyer with the European Commission of Human Rights. In 1987, he was appointed to the Secretariat of the Parliamentary Assembly and was Secretary to the Political Affairs Committee from 1990 to 1999.
Jan then served as the Director of the Secretary General’s Private Office until 2004 and subsequently as Director in the Parliamentary Assembly and Special Advisor to the President.
In 2006, he moved to the Directorate General of Human Rights and was Director of Standard-setting until 2011 when he was appointed to his current function of Director of Information Society – Action against Crime, Directorate General Human Rights and Rule of Law.

Matthew Studley

Benchmarking, Robots, and
Smart Cities

Robots and Smart Cities are similar in many ways, and have numerous potential synergies which may also expose ethical, legal and societal hazards. Because most people will live in cities and urban environments determine health and well-being to a great extent, these interactions are especially salient. A series of projects and competitions have attempted to benchmark some of these interactions, and this effort continues in an independently funded initiative. This talk will explore some of the issues and opportunities

Matthew Studley has worked in the Bristol Robotics Laboratory since 2002, after a commercial career in international telecoms, e-business, and AI R&D.
Alongside a leadership role in Research Ethics and Governance in the University of the West of England, he led the H2020 ‘SciRoc’ project, which delivered big Smart City Robotics events throughout Europe in order to benchmark through competition on relatable, believable tasks, thus demonstrating the state of the art to citizens as a spur to discussion about desires and fears attendant on this new technology.
As the institutional lead for a Turing Institute networking growth grant, Matthew’s main motivation is enabling people to have a say about what sort of future they want. Linked to this he is working with some multinational clients on Ethical Foresight Analysis.
Other current research projects include the ethics of human robot interaction, designing robots to be repurposable, and the interactions between robots and communities

Susan Scott-Parker

How do you Lip Read a Robot-Mitigating the risks triggered by the procurement of AI powered HR Technology

Susan Scott-Parker is an internationally recognised thought leader who has made a career from challenging outdated assumptions regarding both disability as it affects business and the potential of responsible business to adapt respectfully for human reality. She founded the first business disability network, now BDF in the UK and Business Disability International, and is the Strategic Advisor to the ILO Global Business & Disability Network
In 2003 Susan invented the concept and language of ‘Disability Confidence’ – knowing that if we can change the way we talk about the world, we make it easier to change the world. Her work is distinctive in its aim to deliver practical, tangible mutual benefit for business, people with disabilities, the global economy, and wider society.
Susan founded the ‘Disability Ethical AI’ campaign alongside Atos, IBM, Simmons & Simmons, the European Disability Forum, and New York University, to address the risks to the life chances of hundreds of millions triggered by the use of AI powered HR Technology.
Susan is Strategic Advisor to the Government of Canada’s Disability Inclusion Business Council, and has long-standing strategic alliances with the Australian Network on Disability, GIZ, the MyAbility Business Disability Network; The Valuable 500, Purple Space & it’s #PurpleLightUp movement, and The Zero Project.

Selmer Bringsjord

How Hard, Logico-Mathematically Speaking, is Real War (Including of the Ethically Correct Variety) for an AI: Answers from Study of the Game Ekte Krig

Selmer Bringsjord specializes in the logico-mathematical and philosophical foundations of artificial intelligence (AI) and cognitive science (CogSci), in collaboratively building AI systems/robots (including ethically correct ones) on the basis of computational logic, and in the logic-based modeling and simulation of rational, human-level-and-above cognition. Work in these areas has been expressed in over 250 publications, pursued as an investigator in sponsored-research awards of over $26M, and communicated/debated in person in myriad countries. Though Bringsjord spends considerable engineering time in pursuit of ever-smarter computing machines for his much-appreciated sponsors, he claims that “armchair”‘ reasoning time has enabled him to deduce that the human mind will forever be superior to such machines, chatbots notwithstanding.