On Tuesday 16th May 2023, Birmingham City University (BCU) and The IET presented “AI Day” at Innovation Fest 2023, STEAMhouse, Belmont Row, Birmingham, UK. This was a full day of keynote presentations on Artificial Intelligence (AI) which creating opportunities for one-to-one questions, discussion and networking with leading industry and academic figures. Whilst Innovation Fest celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2023, this was the first time that an entire day had been allocated to the subject of AI.
The aim was to provide an insight into a wide range of AI related topics, that frequently occur in the media, including ChatGPT in education, driverless vehicles, smart manufacturing, autonomous weapon systems, AI governance, and international legislation.
Event organiser, Jon Isaacs, had described the day as an opportunity to “find out the facts from the fiction and get a good understanding of what AI and machine learning means and how it is being deployed in 2023”.
Image: Shavani Wilson-Rochford
The first speaker was Shivani Wilson-Rochford, Education Developer at BCU, titled The Redundant Brain? AI, Assessment and Academic Integrity. In this talk, Shivani presented an overview of AI and higher education sector responses to ChatGPT, exploring its potential impact on academic integrity and assessment for universities and as well as opportunities it brings for embracing AI in the classroom.
Image: Dr James E Pickering
Dr James E. Pickering from Aston University, followed with a talk on Safe and Ethical Navigation of Self-Driving Vehicles, discussing the issues surrounding the safety and ethics of self-driving vehicles and how machines in the future will be programmed with control and AI algorithms enabling them to behave in a human-like manner.
Such was the demand for the first two talks, that there was only standing room available at the original venue, which was the Challenge Lab at Steamhouse. Therefore, a decision was taken to move the subsequent talks to the larger main stage at Innovation Fest which provided sufficient seating capacity.
Image: Standing room only in the Challenge Lab
On the main stage, Dr Florimond Gueniat, Senior Lecturer at BCU presented AI for engineering: technologies and challenges. Florimond was joined by Martin Rudorfer from Aston University and George Diamantopoulus from Birmingham University and their talk included a panel discussion with questions around how AI is revolutionising engineering by improving predictive maintenance, automating manufacturing processes, and enabling faster and more accurate computer-aided design (CAD). The panel format worked well and provided the audience an opportunity to debate AI applications, challenges and ethics and the impact on the engineering jobs market.
Image: Dr Florimond Gueniat
David Chinn, from the UK Ministry of Defence, presented AI Policy and Potential Platforms (equipments) which examined the challenges of purchasing and deploying AI technologies in military equipment. David outlined the traditional defence acquisition process, CADMID, and the risks posed by AI enabled hardware and software with respect to specification, test and sign-off.
Image: Kees Van Haperen
Finally, Kees van Haperen JP LLM MSc MBA , and associate director strategic business development for Borwell presented Military Use of (Lethal) Autonomous Weapon Systems, AI and International Law. Dovetailing nicely with the previous speaker, Kees considered how the United Nations has been leading the attempts to use international legal tools to curtain the development and use of AI in Military Use of (Lethal) Autonomous Weapon Systems.
Overall the day delivered on its objectives and we were surprised at the level of interest in AI across the broad range of subjects discussed above. Subsequent discussions with BCU staff have indicated an appetite for hosting a subsequent day, perhaps as a stand-alone event between now and Innovation Fest 2024.
In the meantime, on behalf of Birmingham city University and The IET, I wish to extend our thanks to our guest speakers and our visitors who made the first AI Day a great success!
For further information please contact jon.isaacs@bcu.ac.uk