On Wednesday, 31st May, the first in a series of planned lectures on artificial intelligence was held by Dr. Branislav Kisacanin and Dr. Oliver Subotic at the Matica Srpska.

The dialogue on artificial intelligence was started

The dialogue on the topic which, according to Dr. Dragana Stanic, the president of Matica Srpska, has been shaking us profoundly for decades, especially in the past few years, was started with an introductory lecture by Dr. Branislav Kisacanin and Dr. Oliver Subotic, and will continue with the lectures planned for the end of June and, after the summer break, from autumn onwards.

The lecture on artificial intelligence, which was available on "livestream" was organized by the Matica Srpska, with the Institute for Artificial Intelligence and the "Petar Mandic" Endowment as co-organizers.

The lecturers covered different perspectives, bearing in mind exceptionally polarized attitudes that exist concerning this topic, thereby forming a foundation for future lectures within the dialogue on artificial intelligence.

The audience found out additional information about the Institute for Artificial Intelligence of Serbia and its plans, as well as the enormous potential our country has on the global market for this branch of technology.

In order to acquaint his audience more adequately with the subject of mechanical learning, Dr. Kisacanin defined it as a self-writing software, whose development began in the fifties, and whose use exploded in 2012.

The lecturer emphasized the wide variety of uses of artificial intelligence in everyday life and various discoveries which have been made with its help, that can be significant on a civilizational level, which concern deriving pure energy from nuclear fusion, connecting topological and algebraic properties of nodes, as well as the pharmaceutical industry and a speedier process of the discovery of candidates for new drugs.

Dr. Branislav Kisacanin concluded his presentation with the observation that there is a chance of misusing artificial intelligence (just like any other new technology) and that there is a need for legal regulation, because "water, fire and technology are good servants, but bad masters".

Dr. Oliver Subotic began his speech on artificial intelligence and its challenges by emphasizing the topicality of this theme in the past six months and its exponentially intensive development since 2012, asking where all this is leading us to. 

With the help of a 3-key methodology, which represents three levels of studying each concrete methodology (critical, contextual and conceptual), the speaker tried to give an explanation and offer solutions regarding artificial intelligence and its future development.

Analyzing artificial intelligence through a critical lens, Dr. Oliver Subotic emphasized that this technology makes a lot of jobs easier and offers an improvement in many areas of life, but that it also raises fears such as-what will become of whole areas of human activity, how will artificial intelligence influence human intelligence and creativity, as well as the concept of veracity. The speaker offers, as a solution, the need for a crystal-clear legal regulation which limits the use of this technology as well as a serious public discourse on the subject.

The contextual level of study of artificial intelligence is related to the social context of its use, which is determined, primarily by the war in Ukraine, the struggle for domination between the USA and China, and the trade war of economic giants. In order for the artificial intelligence to be kept under control on a global level, Dr. Subotic suggest a concept of global cooperation.

The speaker describes the conceptual level of study as coming to the crux of this technology, which certainly isn't value neutral, since it is programmed by human intelligence, which is value-directed.

Presbyter Dr. Oliver Subotic concludes that artificial technology will not replace man, but that he fears that man will become a machine through the constant popularization of the merging between man and machine, but that this could be avoided with constant critical discourse, clear legal norms and setting the boundaries of artificial intelligence.

The public debate

At the end of the lecture, a public debate was held on artificial intelligence where members of the audience had the chance to ask questions about the aspects of artificial intelligence which the lecturers had not addressed.