Date/Time
Date(s) - Fri 9 October
16:00 - 17:30
Speakers: Dave Moskovitz (thinktank consulting), Harisu Shehu (VUW), Alanna Irving (Fundsorter), Matthew Bartlett (VUW, thinkstep), Hisham Eldai (Ministry of Ethnic Communities)
AI’s growing social impacts, and growing abilities to emulate humanlike behaviour, have prompted growing discussions within many religious circles about its proper use and governance. In this seminar, you will hear from four speakers in Aotearoa’s AI/tech community, bringing perspectives from the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Dave Moskovitz is a software engineer and tech investor of long standing in New Zealand, and has been active in tech policy for New Zealand too. He is also a longstanding lay leader at his Jewish congregation in Wellington. Harisu Shehu is a recent AI PhD graduate from Vic, who has worked on models of human emotion, and many areas of data science. He’ll be representing an Islamic perspective. Alanna Irving is a Wellington tech founder who builds tools that move money and power to communities doing good. Her current startup is Fundsorter, which uses AI to match charities with grant funding. A trustee of Temple Sinai (Wellington’s Progressive Jewish Congregation), she also has a degree in Asian languages and religions. Matthew Bartlett is one of Vic’s Chaplains – and prior to that, spent several years working on Citizen AI, a public law chatbot. He’ll be representing a Christian perspective. Hisham Eldai works at the Ministry of Ethnic Communities. He has worked in bioinformatics and tech policy, including work at DPMC on the Christchurch Call. He’ll also represent an Islamic perspective.
Host: Rebecca Downes
These seminars consider AI’s social impacts in a range of areas, and discuss how AI can best be overseen to maximise positive impacts and minimise negative ones.
They are open to anyone who is interested in attending. Presenters don’t presuppose any technical background. If they present AI systems, they do it ‘from scratch’, in ways that should be accessible to everyone.
Discussing AI’s social impacts is a very interdisciplinary task, and speakers and participants come from many different backgrounds, in academia, government, industry and NGOs.
The series organiser is Ali Knott (ali.knott@vuw.ac.nz): please email Ali if you’d like to be added to the mailing list.