We hear a lot about Artificial Intelligence or AI and how it seems increasingly to pervade our daily lives, from chatbots which purport to help you when you are trying to do something on-line, to facial recognition which can track our every movement, and most recently generative AI such as ChatGPT which is supposed to be able to write original content. This talk will explain the basics of AI, how it works, and where it can and cannot be used effectively and ethically. AI is at the heart of personalisation, the tailoring of digital services to us as individuals, and it is dramatically changing how we interact with digital experiences and each other. This talk will also discuss current innovations in AI and how AI agents may be used to represent individual users in a variety of circumstances.

Owen Conlan is a Professor in Computer Science in the School of Computer Science and Statistics, Director of the AI Discipline, Co-director of the Trinity Centre for Digital Humanities and a Fellow of the College. He has published widely in the field of Artificial Intelligence with a specific focus on user control over personalised AI-driven systems.