Keynote Speakers
Prof Michael Levin
Michael Levin received dual B.S. degrees (computer science and biology), followed by a Ph.D. (Harvard University). After post-doc training (Harvard Medical School), he started his independent lab focusing on the biophysics of cell:cell communication during embryogenesis, regeneration, and cancer. His group at Tufts uses biophysical and computational approaches to study decision-making and basal cognition in cells, tissues, and synthetic living machines. He is fundamentally interested in the scaling of intelligence in unconventional media and the implementation of mind in a range of biological, engineered, and hybrid systems. Recent work includes the creation of new robot scientist platforms, preclinical advances in cancer, birth defects, and organ regeneration, and the creation of synthetic living proto-organisms.
“Biological robots: engineers and evolution have a lot in common”
What is a robot? What, if anything, makes biological beings different from a robot? In this talk, I will discuss the similarities and differences in the problems faced by human engineers and biological evolution. I will show many examples of unconventional intelligence of living beings adaptively navigating in novel spaces (such as anatomical morphospace) and discuss how evolution makes problem-solving machines. I will discuss aspects of biological control that suggest novel ways of engineering, and show how recent advances in computer science are helping us to understand and control biology. I will discuss applications in regenerative medicine, synthetic morphology, and AI. I will also show the example of Xenobots - a recent merger of machine learning and biorobotics that resulted in a novel living proto-organism made of frog skin cells. Finally, I will discuss how recent advances in bioengineering and AI are dissolving outdated binary categories, requiring new ways to frame continua between concepts such as machine, organism, robot, evolution, design, etc., and sketch an outline of a near future in which this conceptual change requires a major shift in ethics frameworks.
Prof Alan Winfield
Alan Winfield is Professor of Robot Ethics at the University of the West of England, Bristol, visiting Professor at the University of York, and Associate Fellow of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge. Alan co-founded the Bristol Robotics Laboratory where his current research is focused on the science, engineering and ethics of cognitive robotics. Alan sits on the executive of the IEEE Standards Association Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems, and chaired Working Group P7001, which drafted a new IEEE standard on Transparency of Autonomous Systems. Alan is also a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global AI Council.
The Ethical Roboticist: from principles to practice
I am often asked the question: what does professor of robot ethics do? In this talk I will outline my work in robot and AI ethics. I begin by outlining a number of ethical problems in robotics and AI, taking the ethics of driverless cars as a topical case study. I will survey ethical principles which set out what an ethical developer should and should not do, then outline the development of new ethical standards in robotics and AI. Finally I conclude with an assessment of the steps that are now needed to embed ethics in robotics practice and policy.
Dr Marina Konstantatou
Marina Konstantatou is an associate at the Specialist Modelling Group (SMG) at Foster + Partners. She has a background in applied mathematics and physics (National Technical University of Athens), after which she specialised in computational design at the Architectural Association, and civil engineering at the University of Cambridge. She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge, Department of Engineering, on graphic statics (CDT FIBE). Marina’s interests revolve around the development of theoretical and computational frameworks of geometry-based methods for the design and analysis of materially efficient structures. At F+P she specialises on projects and research grants focusing on structural design, additive manufacture, architectural geometry, off-Earth structures, and robotics.
Robotics in the Context of Additive Manufacture at F+P
This talk will focus on the history of robotics in relation to additive manufacture at F+P and its recent applications in construction. This presentation will discuss how additive manufacture has revolutionised prototyping, visualisation, and the design process itself with a particular emphasis on the role of the Specialist Modelling Group (SMG). Furthermore, the transition of additive manufacture from rapid prototyping to the level of construction by means of conventional construction materials will be presented with a focus on recent collaborations between SMG and various academic and industry partners. These accumulated in research projects which cover a wide range of materials, applications, and scales; from concrete to steel and basalt, and from bone-inspired structures to lunar habitat vaults.
Prof Farid Dailami
Farid Dailami is Associate Professor for Knowledge Exchange in Manufacturing at UWE Bristol. He has more than 25 years of research, consultancy and teaching experience - spanning robotics, automation, manufacturing and mechatronics.
As Director of Robotics Innovation Facitility, Farid project manages the £1.8m SABRE Programme and the TERRINet initiative. He previously coordinated three EU Robotics Innovation Facilities, as part of the €20m ECHORD++ project. He has led various manufacturing Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and EPSRC funded research in high speed machining.
Robotic Innovation Facilities, an instrument of European Commission to help adoption robotics and automation
Robotics Innovation Facility (RIF) has been a unit of Bristol Robotics Laboratory since 2013. This talk will introduce the concept of RIFs in the European Robotics and Automation landscape and will illustrate their impact on the robotics and automation scene. The consequences of the ‘valley of death’ and its impact on the adoption of new technologies will be examined. Taking ideas from the laboratory to a state of maturity so that they can be introduced to the marketplace is a continuous challenge. Funding such a process has proven rather hard, RIFs have shown that with help from governmental agencies, funding such a journey is possible. Some examples of successful projects will be presented, but also those that have not been so lucky!