Dr Björn Schuller

In this talk, we delve into the transformative role of altruistic artificial intelligence exemplified by two critical domains: “compassionate” health and habitat monitoring. By harnessing the capabilities of recent deep learning and affective computing we address some of the most pressing challenges facing humanity today. Firstly, we explore how these technologies can revolutionise patient care and treatment adding an empathic side to “Dr AI”. AI-driven systems are increasingly used for early diagnosis and even interventions, but currently lack on the “human touch”. Affective computing could help at this point to bring empathy to the game and, by that compassion and warmth to the patient communication. Secondly, the talk highlights the use of AI in environmental monitoring. AI technologies are instrumental in tracking habitat changes to manage our ecosystems sustainably. AI can thereby increasingly monitor fauna’s and flora’s wellbeing. Beyond these examples, the idea of a future altruistic and potentially compassionate AI will be introduced alongside ethical considerations and the need for responsible AI development to ensure these technologies contribute positively to society. The goal is to foster an understanding of AI's potential to advance the health of us and our planet in an altruistic, compassionate, and friendly manner.

Biography:

Björn W. Schuller received his diploma, doctoral degree, habilitation, and Adjunct Teaching Professor in Machine Intelligence and Signal Processing all in EE/IT from TUM in Munich/Germany where he is Full Professor and Chair of Health Informatics. He is also Full Professor of Artificial Intelligence and the Head of GLAM at Imperial College London/UK, co-founding CEO and current CSO of audEERING – an Audio Intelligence company based near Munich and in Berlin/Germany, Core Member in the Munich Data Science Institute (MDSI), Principal Investigator in the Munich Center for Machine Learning (MCML), Fellow of the Imperial Data Science Institute amongst other Professorships and Affiliations. Previous stays include Full Professor at the University of Augsburg/Germany, independent research leader within the Alan Turing Institute as part of the UK Health Security Agency, Full Professor at the University of Passau/Germany, Key Researcher at Joanneum Research in Graz/Austria, and the CNRS-LIMSI in Orsay/France. He is a Fellow of the ACM, Fellow of the IEEE and Golden Core Awardee of the IEEE Computer Society, Fellow of the BCS, Fellow of the ELLIS, Fellow of the ISCA, Fellow and President-Emeritus of the AAAC, and Elected Full Member Sigma Xi. He (co-)authored 1,400+ publications (60,000+ citations, h-index=111 ranking him number 8 in the UK for Computer Science), is Field Chief Editor of Frontiers in Digital Health and was Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing amongst manifold further commitments and service to the community.