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02 November 2023 | Story NITHA RAMNATH | Photo SUPPLIED
Is AI the future of research? Experiences of co-authoring a book with machine-generated summaries

The University of the Free State (UFS) is pleased to invite you to an online public lecture that will be presented by Prof Hussein Solomon, Senior Professor of Gender and Africa Studies at the UFS. Prof Emma Ruttkamp-Bloem, Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pretoria (UP), will respond. 

Lecture description: Is AI the future of research? Experiences of co-authoring a book with machine-generated summaries.

The world is undergoing tectonic technological shifts that hold grave challenges to societies, universities, and researchers. For any researcher, the persistent challenge is to negotiate a plethora of different sources on the subject, which could be overwhelming. AI could be one means to facilitate the process of research. This, however, raises ethical questions as to the originality of research, issues of plagiarism, and the question of the individual researcher’s own intuition as opposed to software-generated prompts. Prof Solomon shares his experiences working on a machine-generated book.

Date:  Monday, 27 November 2023
Time: 14:00-15:30 

 

WATCH: www.ufs.ac.za/Webinar

For further information, contact Alicia Pienaar at pienaaran1@ufs.ac.za.

Speaker:

Prof Solomon is a Professor in the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies at the UFS. His research interests revolve around political Islam and issues of terrorism. His most recent books include African Security in the Anthropocene (with Jude Cocodia, Springer, 2023), The Future of War in Africa (with Eeben Barlow, Amazon Kindle, 2023), Intersectionality and LGBTQI Rights: A Comparative Analysis of Iran, Turkey and Egypt (with Simone Bekker, Nova Publishers, 2023), Directions in International Terrorism: Theories, Trends and Trajectories (Palgrave, 2021), Terrorism in Africa: New Trends and Frontiers (with Glen Segell and Sergey Kostelyanets, Institute for African Studies, Moscow, 2021), and Arab MENA Countries: Vulnerabilities and Constraints Against Democracy on the Eve of the Global COVID-19 Crisis (with Arno Tausch, Springer 2021).

Respondent:

Prof Ruttkamp-Bloem is Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy at UP, the AI ethics lead at the Centre for AI Research (CAIR), and the chair of the Southern African Conference on AI Research (SACAIR). She is a philosopher of science and technology, an AI ethics policy adviser, a machine ethics researcher, and is an associate editor of the Science and Engineering Ethics journal. Prof Ruttkamp-Bloem led the UNESCO Ad Hoc Expert Group that prepared the draft of the 2021 UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI, currently assists with implementing the recommendation, and is the current rapporteur for the UNESCO Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST). Prof Ruttkamp-Bloem has recently been appointed to the AI Advisory Body reporting to the Secretary General of the UN.

News Archive

Inaugural lecture: Prof Pieter Verster
2005-02-16

Prof Pieter Verster from the Department of Missiology at the University of the Free State (UFS) will deliver his inaugural lecture on Wednesday 23 February 2005 at 19:00 in the CR Swart Auditorium on campus.

The topic of the lecture is Die begronding van die sending by Paulus in die lig van sy erkenning van die godheid van Christus.

Pieter Verster started his theological training in 1973 at the UFS and continued it at the University of Pretoria (UP). He obtained the degrees BA (cl) from the UFS in 1976; BA Hons (Greek cl) from the UP in 1979; MA (Greek) from the UFS in 2000;

a BD (cl) from the UP in 1979; a Post-graduate Diploma in Theology (cl) from the UP in 1980; a DD (Missiology and Religion Studies) from the UP in 1985 and a DD (Dogmatics and Ethics) from the UP in 1989.

He was honoured for academic excellence (UFS 1975), overall excellence (UP 1979) and research excellence (UFS 2004). He has visited various overseas universities and institutions in the Netherlands , Switzerland , Germany and the USA ,.

Prof Verster has also published various articles in academic journals and his books include Wie het die waarheid beet? for which he received the CUM/RSG writers’ competition prize in 1996. He has also published short stories in Tydskrif vir Letterkunde and Dolos and poems in inter alia Literator and Litnet.

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za

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