The Karel Capek Centre for Values in Science and Technology - a new workplace of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Faculty of Cell Biology of the Charles University devoted to research of artificial intelligence-related ethics and rights - will be closer to the public thanks to the YouTube channel of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
Prague 21 January 2019 – Czech Academy of Sciences introduces the Karel Capek Centre for Values in Science and Technology even through the YouTube channel Zvěd. The first episode is going to focus on the consciousness of robots.
The Karel Capek Centre for Values in Science and Technology is a project common to three institutes of the Academy of Sciences – Institute of Informatics, Institute of Philosophy and Institute of State and Law – and to the Faculty of Cell Biology of the Charles University. The subjects of interest of the Centre are, in particular, the ethical and legal issues of artificial intelligence at interdisciplinary level. The Centre deals with the consequences of the application of modern technologies, for example, to autonomous cars, warfare systems, or genetic modifications of plants and animals.
The Department of Audio Visual Technologies of the Division of External Relations of the Centre of Administration and Operations of the Czech Academy of Sciences successfully cooperated with the Centre’s individual institutes in the shooting of news reports on modern science and technologies (e.g. on the rights of robots), and is following on this cooperation now. To start its new project – YouTube channel Zvěd, it has chosen the topic of the consciousness of robots, a topic close to our interest. YouTuber Vojtěch Klinger has visited our new interdisciplinary centre and discussed the consciousness, robots, and general ethical issues of the future with one of the centre’s founding members, doctor Tomáš Hříbek. Hence, the YouTube channel Zvěd will open its broadcasting by looking for an answer to a provocative question: Can robots have consciousness? Let’s set out for a trip to find the consciousness of robots from scratch, from the neurons, general questions on the consciousness of robots up to sophisticated consciousness theories of Frank Jackson, David Chalmers or Daniel Dennett. Other episodes will be devoted, for example, to the issue of autonomous cars.
The first episode of the YouTube channel Zvěd, devoted to the consciousness of robots and created in cooperation with the Karel Capek Centre, can be viewed at https://youtu.be/lXsoueR4P9A.
Links:
Karel Capek Centre for Values in Science and Technology: www.cevast.org, FB @CentrumKarlaCapka
Zvěd: YT Zvěd, FB @Zvedcz, IG @Zvedzved
Presskit: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1c_w6A48pCrR5whvgJ2J4X6Jnb589dXRs?usp=sharing
Links to previous news coverages:
Establishment of the Karel Capek Centre – https://youtu.be/1_sbuHDnGbQ;
Cycle ‘What Will Happen to Us?: A Tank or Calculator?’ – https://youtu.be/wsC7v_HcyEw, Walking Robots – https://youtu.be/5pkvMLCgKWA, Rights of Robots – https://youtu.be/8PtlBF2gwsU, Autonomous Cars – https://youtu.be/xvRxPV-gaz0, Robots and Labour – https://youtu.be/PUc31XnqL2A