Philiosophy : McWhirter Conference
Will AI make us happier?
The McWhirter Conference is a prestigious philosophy conference for young people, that was originally founded in 1975 in Oxford. This year I was lucky enough to have been nominated to represent Northcote High School at this event at the beginning of July. The topic of this year’s conference was “Will AI make us happier?”.
The first two days were hosted online, and we listened to professionals who had expertise in different areas of the topic:
Svetha Venkatesh - She spoke about the practical applications of AI, and how it can be used for security, warehousing, driverless cars, and automated hospitality.
Oliver Bown - Can AI make music? What is true creativity and originality? Can humans even tell the difference between human and artificial art and music? (Studies show that we can’t)
Dr Denis Bauer - I found Dr Bauer the most interesting of all the speakers. She works at ASIO and has done a lot of development of gene editing software using the massive data sorting capacity of AI. CRISPR is a gene editing protein that is very effective, however it is difficult to find exactly what part of the human genome to edit, and the flow on effects of any changes. ASIO has developed two new algorithms to deal with these problems. GTAC is used to find which gene to edit, and GOANA is an algorithm that predicts the flow on impacts on the rest of the genome. But the real question is whether humans have any right in “playing the hand of God” through changing our DNA.
Dr Colin Hales- A real life mad scientist. He gave his talk from his laboratory and showed us the AI he was working on. He spoke about the differences in AI. There is the AI we often use such as Siri, and the predictive algorithms of Youtube and Spotify. Then there is Artificial General Intelligence, which is the type that exists in nature, the ability to adapt to new environments, and overcome new problems.
The last day of the conference was held at Ormond College, where we finally got to meet our peers in person. We designed a theoretical AI, and listened to a talk about persevering from the Western Bulldogs AFLW player Izzy Huntington. Overall, the experience was phenomenal and eyeopening. It was amazing to hear about the advancements in AI, but also interesting to discuss its philosophical implications. I highly recommend any year elevens get involved next year, and make some new friends while you’re at it!
-Karla Shanley 11F
