UK Happenings

Lecture on Humans, Machines and the Future of Work April 13

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 5, 2017) — Automation, driven by technological progress, has been advancing for the past several decades. Two schools of economic thought often debate the potential effects of automation on jobs: will new technology spawn mass unemployment, as robots take jobs away from humans? Or will the jobs robots take over create demand for new human jobs?

Professor Moshe Y. Vardi, of Rice University, will speak on these concerns at 4 p.m. Thursday, April 13, in Room 153 of the Chemistry-Physics Building. A reception will follow from 5-6 p.m. at the Hilary J. Boone Center.

In his lecture, "Humans, Machines and the Future of Work," Vardi will present data that demonstrate that the concerns about automation are valid, arguing that technology has been hurting working Americans for the past 40 years.

Vardi is the Karen Ostrum George Distinguished Service Professor in Computational Engineering and director of the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology at Rice University. He is the recipient of numerous awards and the author and co-author of over 500 papers, as well as two books: "Finite Model Theory and It's Applications" and "Reasoning About Knowledge." He is a fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery, the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science, the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

Vardi is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the European Academy of Science and the Academy of Europe. He holds honorary doctorates form the Saarland University in Germany, University of Orleans in France and the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. He is the editor-in-chief of Communications, the journal of the ACM.

Vardi's lecture is sponsored by the Center for Computational Sciences, UK College of Engineering, Department of Computer Science and the Institute for Biomedical Informatics.