Hi all,
It's the end of the flex week and we're returning back to uni as of tomorrow for our week 7!
Tomorrow, Monday 21st Oct, 12-2pm (Law Theatre), my lecture will cover transparency, explainability, and XAI tools and methods . Those doing the third question in the essay 2 will definitely benefit from this lecture tomorrow; and also those doing group projects covering XAI.
Thursday 24 October 4-6pm: 2x Guest lectures at the Science theatre!
Thu 24 Oct 4-5pm: LLMs, Foundation Models, and Alignment (Dr. Hao Xue)
F oundation models , a class of large-scale pre-trained models that form the backbone of many cutting-edge AI applications today. I will briefly introduce what the foundation model is, the current challenges of foundation models, and the basics to get a foundation model. We will discuss the key characteristics of foundation models, their pre-training and fine-tuning processes, and their impact on diverse fields. Additionally, the lecture will highlight the challenges of ensuring these models are aligned with human values and ethical considerations. Further, we will also briefly discuss about the future vision of foundation models.
Dr Hao Xue currently holds a Lecturer position at the School of Computer Science and Engineering at University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney), Australia. He obtained his PhD from The University of Western Australia in 2020. After completing his doctorate, he worked as a Research Fellow at the School of Computing Technologies at RMIT University and UNSW Sydney. His research interests include spatiotemporal data modelling, time series forecasting, language generation based forecasting, and data-efficient time series representation learning.
Thu 24 October 5-6pm: I am Not a Number (a film and Q& A with Dr. Georgia van Toorn)
Georgia will present her film I am Not a Number , a short documentary about the complexities of algorithmic fairness and its impacts on access to disability support. The film raises critical questions about the ethical implications of using algorithms to determine eligibility for services, highlighting the lived experiences of those affected by automated decision systems. Through personal stories and expert insights, the documentary challenges viewers to consider the human consequences of digital governance in the context of disability rights.
Dr. Georgia van Toorn
is a political sociologist specialising in international social policy, politics, disablement, and social justice. Her research explores global transformations in welfare governance, with a particular focus on the growing impact of data analytics and algorithmic decision-making in the public sector. Much of her work to date has centred on the changing nature of disability welfare and social reproduction more generally under neoliberalism, notably in the contexts of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
I have seen the preview of Georgia's film, and I found it to be a very moving doco showing the impact of ADMs on those on disability support. Please come and see it for yourself. This movie will help to round up our discussions on transparency, fairness, and also value sensitive design, and help you to discover the essence of all of this -- human rights and values.
Cheers,
Flora
Hi everyone!
The first essay questions are up on webcms under Assignments>First Essay Questions.
All best,
Seb
Hi,
Welcome to 4920.
We're all looking forward to meeting you!
To familiarise yourself, please check out our welcome video and the course outline.
We are not using the forums on WebCMS. But the forum is on Ed. Join via this link:
https://edstem.org/au/join/NK4Dhq
Here is a guide to using Ed
https://edstem.org/help/student-discussion
Our lecture will be in person on Monday 12-2 at Law Theatre G04 (K-F8-G04) and on Thu 4-6 at the Science Theatre. They are not repeat lectures. Each will cover a different topic - see the course outline for more details.
For those joining online, please go to Moodle to access Echo360 Livestream and Recordings.
See you tomorrow.
Flora & Seb