Hello everyone
The Royal Institution's annual Christmas Lectures (for 11-17 year olds) are given by a scientist every year in the Ri's famous Faraday Lecture Theatre. They're recorded by the BBC for later broadcast over the Christmas holidays but they're also going to be livestreamed to a number of venues across the UK. You can find out which venues are involved and keep an eye out for when their ticket links go live (page is currently being populated by people at the Ri).
Events are taking place in Aberdeen (TechFest), Armagh, Birmingham, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Harwell, Keele, Lancaster, Liverpool (2 venues), London (3 venues), Manchester (2 venues), Merthyr Tydfil (See Science), Oxford (2 venues), Plymouth, TechFest, Uxbridge, Warwick, Widnes and York.
This year Prof Mike Wooldridge will give three lectures on "The Truth About AI" (details below).
The livestream events are open to families, schools, community groups and it's basically like going to the cinema. You'll watch, by videolink, the lecture being given as it happens. You won't be visible on-screen or recorded. There'll probably be lots of stops and starts while demos are re-set or perhaps a different camera angle needs to be set up, so also quite interesting to see how something is put together for a BBC series.
The recordings will be taking place on these days. Doors typically open at around 5.30pm with everyone seated to watch the livestream start at 6pm. They've allowed two and a half hours to complete so everything will be finished by 8.30pm.
• Tuesday 12th December
• Thursday 14th December
• Saturday 16th December
You can attend any or all of the lectures (you'll need to get a ticket per person per event) and each lecture is self-contained so you dont need to have attended 1 and 2 in order to understand 3.
Some of the livestreaming events are free, some are charging to cover costs (many also have reduced-price tickets for local state schools and Ri Members).
Each event will be different and there will be some activities to do when the livestream is paused as something is re-set for recording. Should be quite fun. All ages are welcome :) I'm helping to run one of the events in London but I'm not affiliated with the Royal Institution, I just like telling people about events! :)
Twitter hashtag: #XmasLectures
Don't forget you'll be able to watch all three lectures from your sofa over Christmas, on BBC Four I think.
Lecture one - Tue 12th Dec
In this Lecture Mike will demonstrate the contrast between how a machine learns and how a human learns, and explain how neural networks accelerated the growth of AI. But could machines ever match human intelligence?
Lecture two - Thu 14th Dec
In the second Lecture Mike will reveal the huge role AI already plays in our daily lives – without us even realising. He will demonstrate how the computer games that we play in our spare time have become a training ground for AI. He will also reveal the huge impact AI has had in fields ranging from football to, controversially, our creative lives – in art, photography and music.
Lecture three - Sat 16th Dec
In the final Lecture Mike will explore how AI should be treated as it gets more intelligent. He will explore where the technology is going – will we have machines that have the same status as us as intelligent/sentient entities?
Come along, bring the family - and please tell your kids' teachers so they can tell other people too :)
If you have kids aged 11-17 then bookmark this Ri page for next year - they have a ballot for schools to apply for free tickets for kids to attend (parents have to lurk outside, it's just kids in the theatre). You need to be an Ri member though.
Thanks
Jo