Artificial Intelligence Initiative.
Friday 17th January 2020

Artificial Intelligent (AI) has become a pervasive term in the modern world. Society is immersed in an AI fever permeating every sector of society and in some instances prophesying their demise. At the centre of the AI debate is the role of Higher Education (HE) & the economy. Are these sector prepared for this onslaught, what role will they play and moreover, what impact will this technology have on the future? Building on the prior work of the University of Liverpool’s Management School arising from a pump priming grant to examine the role of intelligent agents in HE, the symposium seeks to explore the role, challenges and opportunities for advancement & implementation of AI within these sectors. In order to do so, the symposium brings together the University of Liverpool’s Risk Institute and Management School for a combined effort to engage with this complex topic.

The key focus of the symposium will be an exploration of early lines of research centred on such topics as:

• Adoption of intelligent agents (I.e. chatbots, machine learning etc) – What potential benefits and challenges does this bring to learning & teaching in HE?
• AI integration in engineering/business – What role can/will it play in knowledge management, decision making and innovative capabilities towards improved productivity & competitive advantage in the UK?
• Educating the Future - What policies/frameworks are required within HE to support AI integration inclusive of ethical considerations?
• Socio-economic impact of AI - How can the society better prepare for the socio-economic impact of AI (I.e. universal wage, retraining, job displacement etc.) and what role can HE can play?

The symposium presents an opportunity to examine the AI phenomena through identification of potential use cases to support research and funding. We hope to bring together like minded individuals (academics & practitioners) to share experiences, best practices and templates and provide a potential conduit for future partnership collaborations.