SCML 2016 - Symposium on Communicating Machine Learning

Machine learning is a disruptive technology with tremendous impact potential. Research achievements in machine learning are increasingly in the media spotlight, and there is a growing attention at all levels of society towards how learning machines may affect human activities and society in general. At this critical stage, the way machine learning research is communicated is likely to have an important and lasting impact on the perception of the technology within the broader public. It is therefore imperative that the research community engages proactively to shape the way machine learning is communicated to stakeholders and the general public. In this brief symposium, we will bring together machine learning researchers and media professionals to discuss the challenges posed by this dialogue, and the best practice in outreach and science communication.
The event will consist of brief presentations from a machine learning researcher and a science communicator, followed by a round table discussion and question and answer session, to which the audience will be encouraged to participate. Refreshments will be served at the end of the discussion to encourage further one-on-one discussions. The following experts have already agreed to form part of the expert panel:
Prof Neil Lawrence: Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Sheffield. He has more than 15 years of experience of research in machine learning, including chairing the premier machine learning conference Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS). He has a long commitment to outreach, and is a member of the Royal Society working group on machine learning.
Dr Liesbeth Venema: Senior Editor at Nature with a particular interest in science and technology, particularly artificial intelligence.
Martin Robbins: A freelance science writer with ten years of experience in the technology industry. He edits The Lay Scientist; a community blog about technology, pseudoscience and evidence-based politics, and regularly contributes to The Guardian and New Statesman.