CRT-AI -Amsterdam Science Park Visit

15 Apr 2024

Our SFI CRT in AI PhD researchers attended a unique learning opportunity this week with a visit to the Amsterdam Science Park, Matrix 1, situated on the grounds of the University of Amsterdam, for a series of amazing lectures from leading #AI scientists. Founded in 2019, Amsterdam AI, the ‘Technology for People Group’, is an initiative of Amsterdam universities, research centres, and medical centres that collaborate to work on state-of-the-art AI research programmes, education, practical applications, & public-private partnerships.

In attendance were our CRT co-directors, Dr Derek Bridge University College Cork, along with Professor Paul Buitelaar of the University of Galway Professor Suzanne Little of Dublin City University, who introduced our brilliant CRT PhD researchers to our hosts with Prof. Suzanne Little presenting the details of our cohort-based programme. 40 PhD researchers participated in our inaugural cohort-based, international event and presented their research posters during a luncheon.

Some of the lectures on the day included talks from Professor Gusz Eiben Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam) on Evolving Intelligence, Ivo Everts Sr. Strategic Architect Databricks Dr. Bob Huisman R&D Manager from Nederlandse Spoorwegen passenger railway operator in the Netherlands, where he discussed the significant gap in trustworthy human-centric AI. We were also delighted to have Dr. Iacer Calixto, a professor from the University Medical Center Department of Medical Informatics at Amsterdam UMC, talk about #LLMs in Healthcare, #NLP methods for problems in medicine, and psychology. Dr. Marieke van Erp gave a fascinating and interactive talk on data science and old archives, while Dr. Stefan Schlobach, spoke on knowledge representation and reasoning and knowledge engineering and logic for AI.

The final session included a panel discussion chaired by Dr. Derek Bridge, School of Computer Science & Information Technology, UCC, who chaired the fascinating & incredibly difficult discussion surrounding the social impact of AI.

The Amsterdam AI Group's thriving AI ecosystem, accompanied by their research into societal, ethical, and legal aspects of AI, provided our PhD researchers with a glimpse into their unique AI projects & initiatives.