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Mike Wooldridge will tackle the big questions facing AI research and unravel the myths about how this ground-breaking technology really works.

29 August 2023

We are delighted to announce that Hertford Fellow Professor Michael Wooldridge will give this year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, to be broadcast on BBC Four and iPlayer in late December 2023.

Mike’s lectures will demonstrate the huge impact AI is having in fields ranging from medicine to football to astrophysics – and even in our creative lives, in art, photography, and music. He will explore how computer programmes inspired by the human brain can be taught – and even teach themselves – and tell the surprising story of how tools like the latest chatbots work. Mike will illustrate the mind-boggling scale of modern AI systems, while showing us the role that AI already plays in our lives, without us even being aware of it.

Mike will be joined by some major figures from world of AI, including scientists from leading international AI companies. He will also introduce a range of robot friends, who will demonstrate what robots today can do, as well as what they can’t.

Throughout the years, the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture series has hosted three prior lecturers from Hertford thus making Mike the fourth Hertford Fellow to be invited to speak. Most recently, Alison Woollard was the 2013 lecturer; Walter Bodmer delivered the lectures in 1984, and Christopher Zeeman in 1978.

The Christmas Lectures are the Royal Institution’s biggest, and most famous, demonstration-based science event for young people. The lectures have been broadcast on UK television every Christmas since 1966 and have formed part of the festive tradition for generations.

The 2023 Christmas Lectures will be filmed in the Royal Institution’s iconic theatre on 12, 14, and 16 December 2023 and broadcast on BBC Four and iPlayer between Christmas and New Year. For more information about the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, past broadcasts and scheduling, please refer to the following BBC Four link.