Onder leiding van Artificial Intelligence-experts Marlies van Eck en Ronald van den Hoogen is het multidisciplinaire opleidingsprogramma samengesteld. Dit is de eerste editie van postacademische leergang van het Leidse PAO-bureau en extra bijzonder is dat de leergang volledig online plaatsvindt.

Very little is known about the relationship between religion and the digital future. Bart Barendregt, Professor by special appointment Anthropology of Digital Diversity, is about to change that. He receives a Vici grant of 1.5 million euros from the NWO for his research project 'One between the Zeros, an Anthropology of Artificial Intelligence in Islam'. Where Religion and digitalisation coexist, there is room for experiment, but ethical dilemmas emerge. Nowhere is this made more tangible than in the design and use of AI in Muslim Southeast Asia. How do digital religious futures help us reflect on the current digital transition?

The development of smart cars, video games that adapt to your gaming behaviour, law enforcement assigning your neighbourhood a risk score, insurance rates determined by your behaviour, finding your perfect match via an app: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly and radically transforming our interactions and the basic structure of our society. Our new minor AI and Society provides you with a basic understanding of AI and its applications in the world of today and tomorrow.

An international collaboration, including Leiden physicist and computer scientist Vedran Dunjko, showed that quantum technology can speed-up the learning process of artificial intelligence (AI). To prove this, the physicists and computer scientists used a quantum processor for single photons. Their work contributes to the advancement of quantum AI for future applications, such as in the quantum internet. The results have been published in Nature.

The importance of digitalization has become even more evident during the Corona crisis. Society and the Dutch economy are therefore rapidly digitizing. This calls for a good balance between seizing opportunities and reducing risks.

Brand-new professor Gerard van Westen works at the intersection of artificial intelligence and drug development. For the new chair in Artificial Intelligence and Medicinal Chemistry, he uses computer models to make drug development more efficient. Our ultimate goal is a virtual human which allows you to say: if we administer these specific molecules, this is the expected effect.’

A mix of data research, artificial intelligence and archaeology led to lively discussions on 31 January. On that day the unique event 'AI & Data Science @ Archaeology' took place in which the Data Science Research Programme (DSRP), SAILS and the Faculty of Archaeology joined forces.

Yesterday, the European Commission presented its long-anticipated proposal for an AI regulation. After the Commission had outlined the European legislation at the start of 2020 in its white paper on artificial intelligence ‘A European approach to excellence and trust’, a concrete proposal for a European regulation is now on the table.