The Creative Machine Symposium, a prestigious showcase of the latest creative and research applications of artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality and robotics, is coming to the University of Oxford for the first time this year.
Creative Machine Oxford has been developed by Goldsmiths, University of London, in partnership with Jesus College Oxford, and will be held in the College’s new Cheng Kar Shun Digital Hub on Tuesday 30th May 2023. The one-day event is generously supported by The Alan Turing Institute.
Bringing together invited speakers from the worlds of computing, AI, art, robotics, and virtual and augmented reality, the symposium will address topics such as ‘Can AI be creative?’, ‘AI and visualisation for scientific discovery’, using ‘AI for Music’ and ‘Human intelligence: The workings of the Human Brain’. Across the day there will be a range of talks by leading experts from globally-recognised organisations and institutes, including DeepMind, King.com, Oxford Computational Neurosciences, MIT Technology Review, Nuffield Clinical Neurosciences, Spotify, the Victoria and Albert Museum and UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience.
There will also be demonstrations of some of the latest creative AI technologies. Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt, Jesus College Principal and Professorial Research Fellow in Computer Science at the University of Oxford, will host a keynote panel discussion exploring the impact and implications to society of AI in the 21st century.
Creative Machine Oxford will showcase the wide range of application of AI in research and the creative industries
Goldsmiths’ first Creative Machine event was held in its Department of Computing in 2014 and took the form of an art exhibition that explored the intersection between human and machine creativity, asking the question ‘Could a machine replace the human artist, and if not, could the machine be an effective creative partner to the artist?’ This question has remained at the core of each Creative Machine Symposium ever since. Goldsmiths’ Professor William Latham, who is a co-organiser of Creative Machine and a pioneering computer artist and games designer, explained:
“The fundamental question of whether a computer can be more creative than a human is a current and contentious topic of debate. The Creative Machine Symposium addresses this question from a range of perspectives led by experts from across computing, the arts, sciences and neurosciences. Related themes such how human / computer creative partnerships can work and AI mechanisms for discovery in science will also be explored. Secondary topics such as how do you measure human or machine creativity? will be covered along the way.”
Professor Frederic Fol Leymarie, Goldsmiths AI Creativity Computing Scientist and co-organiser, said: “Moving the Creative Machine outside London for the first time, we are delighted to be co-hosting with Jesus College with its huge academic heritage being combined with Goldsmiths’ creative computing and art for the first time.”
Sir Nigel said, “We are delighted to be hosting Creative Machine Oxford here at Jesus College, and in our new Cheng Kar Shun Digital Hub. The vision for the Digital Hub is as a conduit for research, learning and public engagement in the digital age, and a venue for events that bring global academic communities together across disciplines and in collective endeavour. This year generative AI has taken the world by storm – AI systems that generate startling new content – a theme at the heart of Creative Machine Oxford. Creative Machine is a flagship conference for academics and those working in the creative industries interested in the convergence of AI and creativity, and the College is pleased to be working in collaboration with Goldsmiths on this event.”
Attendance at Creative Machine Oxford is by invitation only, but it is hoped that a selection of talks, demos and artwork will be shared online afterwards.
- About Goldsmiths, University of London
Founded in 1891, Goldsmiths, University of London is an institution with a rich academic history that is known for its creative approach. Its 10,000 students are based on campus in the heart of south east London’s New Cross community, studying undergraduate, postgraduate, teacher training and Short Courses in the arts and humanities, social sciences, cultural studies, psychology, computing, and entrepreneurial business, law and management. Goldsmiths research shapes the future, changes lives and is at the forefront of creative practice with nearly four-fifths of our research rated internationally excellent or world-leading by the Research Excellence Framework 2021. A College of the University of London, Goldsmiths provides a community-focused cultural hub through Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, a globally-recognised art gallery, and an extensive programme of free lectures, concerts and events across the organisation which are open to all.
- About Jesus College, Oxford
Jesus College was founded in 1571 by Queen Elizabeth 1 at the request of a Welsh lawyer and clergyman called Hugh Price, and is the only Elizabethan college at the University of Oxford. Located in the heart of the city, the College combines the highest standards of academic excellence in teaching and research with a vibrant, inclusive and supportive community. The College is home to over 700 undergraduate and graduate students, who come from a wide range of backgrounds, countries and cultures. Jesus College Principal, Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt FRS, is a leading researcher in computer science and artificial intelligence and amongst was one of the originators of the interdisciplinary field of web science. Amongst the College’s 110 Fellows, lecturers and tutors are many world-class academics, working at the boundaries of interdisciplinary research in the information age: from climate change, astrophysics and medical research, to medieval history, classics and law. The College’s Cheng Kar Shun Digital Hub opened in 2022. Find out more about Jesus College here.
- About The Alan Turing Institute
The Alan Turing Institute is the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence.
The Institute is named in honour of Alan Turing, whose pioneering work in theoretical and applied mathematics, engineering and computing is considered to have laid the foundations for modern-day data science and artificial intelligence. The Institute’s goals are to undertake world-class research in data science and artificial intelligence, apply its research to real-world problems, drive economic impact and societal good, lead the training of a new generation of scientists, and shape the public conversation around data and algorithms. turing.ac.uk