Professor David Chalmers (Director of the Centre for Consciousness as the Australian National University and this year's John Locke Lecturer at Oxford) gave a well-attended address in the Exam Schools on 10 May, presenting a philosophical analysis of the possibility of a technological singularity or "intelligence explosion" resulting from recursively self-improving AI.
Chalmers argued that the prospect of such an event deserves serious attention and that philosophical analysis can help tease out the specific premises needed in arguments that support or deny the singularity hypothesis. This talk was sponsored by the Future of Humanity Institute and the Welcome Centre for Neuroethics.