"Sharing autonomy (and responsibility): The robots are ready, are you?" Professor Vijayakumar's Our Changing World Lecture 2015

Professor Sethu Vijayakumar, who holds a RAEng - Microsoft Research Chair in Robotics and is the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics director at the University of Edinburgh, delivered the first lecture in the University’s Our Changing World series for 2015 on Tuesday 29th September 2015.

Our Changing World series for 2015 at the Lecture Theatre in George Square. The OCW lecture series is designed to stimulate debate about the global challenges facing society and how academia is addressing those challenges. Attendees ranged from undergraduate and postgraduate students, staff and the wider public. His talk ‘Sharing autonomy (and responsibility): The robots are ready, are you?’ was filmed and has already attracted over 1,000 views on YouTube.

During his lecture, Professor Vijayakumar addressed the current application and uses of state-of-the-art robots, as well as the trade-off between autonomy and control. He gave an overview of the technological & scientific advances in the Robotics area and then elaborated on the most controversial issues about the use of robots in society. He also outlined the challenges they raise and how researchers are working to make robots more autonomous, so they can plan and make decisions safely for themselves.

Professor Sethu Vijayakumar's full lecture on YouTube: ‘Sharing autonomy (and responsibility): The robots are ready, are you?’