27/06/2014

2013 UNIV Forum at the UIC Ends with Focus on Artificial Intelligence

Dr. Marco Schorlemmer, a researcher at the CSIC Institute of Artificial Intelligence, gave the closing lecture at the UIC's 2013 UNIV Forum on Saturday, 16 February 2013. The topic of this year's forum was virtual identity. This year, 150 people participated with more than 50 papers, which shows that the interest in this university discussion event has increased each year.

"Artificial intelligence: Was computing made in man's image or was man made in the image of computing?" This was the title of the lecture in which Dr. Schorlemmer provided a very entertaining review of the development of research into what films often make us think is science fiction, but which we actually come into contact with every day.

In fact, the lecture provided an appropriate ending to the UIC's 2013 UNIV Forum, which encouraged university students to think about the limits of the social networks we use more and more and to "discover human identity in a digital world", the title of the 2013 UNIV Forum that will be held in Rome.

One of the points raised by the program is that the increased use of computers can end up absorbing the time, silence and reflection needed for personal development. This challenge was addressed by nearly 150 university students from nine Catalan universities studying degree programmes in humanities, architecture, law, nursing, medicine, education and engineering, among others.

The papers were read in six different topic rooms in which a UIC professor acted as the jury member. Each paper was followed by an interdisciplinary debate among students from the different participating universities.

The closing ceremony was presided over by UIC Rector Pere Alavedra. Teresa Vallès, the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and the person responsible for organizing the forum, highlighted the increased participation in the event.