Abstract

Today there are several disparate fields of artificial Intelligence. COMPANIONS is a project that aims to converge these fields in order to create a system capable of developing a real understanding of an individual—a system that will talk with them, look at their photos and ultimately learn about and help humans.

The project is an exciting attempt to break new ground and create truly social software. And who knows, Facebook might actually suggest someone you know to add as a friend!

Professor Wilks is professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Sheffield and a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute. He matriculated at Pembroke in 1961 and received his PhD from Cambridge in 1968 for his thesis titled “Argument and Proof”.

The committee will be taking Prof. Wilks to formal hall beforehand and anyone is welcome to come and join us (email Rob rab207 if you are coming so we can make sure we sit near you!). Prof. Wilks sounds like he will have lots of interesting stories about Pembroke from years ago – no women around, studying with the likes of Bill Oddy, Eric Idle and John Sulstone, not tomention lots of fascinating stories about computing!