Gresham College Lectures

Professor Wilks will discuss the argument that 'superintelligent' AI may turn against us, as Hawking and Bostrom have warned. It will be argued that these worries misrepresent the achievements and potential of AI, and that the ethical dilemmas of AI will be deeper and more challenging than just managing idleness due to automation, or how to blame an automated car in a crash. They will include how to treat the artificial Companions created to curate our own lifetimes of information.

A lecture by Professor Yorick Wilks, Visiting Professor of AI 14 May 2019

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/danger-ai-ethics-work-leisure

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

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It's a tough time to be a listener. Our present-day cultures of listening are radically fragmented, as our time and attention are fractalised into bits of information. What's the future of listening? What will happen to the ways we give attention to music in the future? Our conclusion might be that an expanded definition of listening - an active, participative, engaged listening! - can save our digital and musical futures from the fates they seem to be facing.

A lecture by Tom Service, Gresham Professor of Music 13 May 2019

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/digital-listening-fragmentation

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

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The newly discovered Salvator by Leonardo, the world’s most costly picture, is one of his most notable creations, in which he used his ‘science of art’ to transform a stock subject into a profound expression of the ineffability of the divine.

We will look at the remarkable story of its discovery, its conservation and scientific examination, the research into how it works as an image and its provenance. We will also look at the scandalous events of its ownership and how it came to be where it is now.

A lecture by Martin Kemp, University of Oxford 1 May 2019

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/leonardo-salvator-mundi

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Pollution is a much more complex problem than many realise and cannot be resolved solely through global and regional agreements. Pollution is closely connected with behavioural and technology choices, production and consumption practices, industrial processes and pricing policies, financial and business sector orientation and a culture of consumerism and irresponsibility to the environment and impacts on people's health. Only by changing behaviours can we tackle pollution.

A lecture by Jacqueline McGlade, Frank Jackson Foundation Professor of the Environment 30 April 2019

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/pollution-inequality-health

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

This series has argued that the origins of modern secularism lie in the age of the Renaissance. This last lecture will track that legacy down to the present. From Tom Paine through Bakunin to modern humanism and anti-Nazism, religion has not collapsed intellectually. Instead, religious impulses - defiance of unwelcome moral authority, the quest for ever-deeper truths, a readiness to judge churches by their own standards - have given our age a profoundly secular ethic with deeply religious roots.

A lecture by Professor Alec Ryrie, Gresham Professor of Divinity 9 May 2019

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/jesus-hitler-abolition-of-god

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

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Much has happened in the 500 years since the birth of Thomas Gresham, and mathematics is no exception. Most mathematicians were then in awe of the Greeks and felt little had been done since. But the start of modern mathematics soon followed, marked by the solution of the cubic equation. Mathematics has grown explosively since then and we are now in an age of great discovery.

The last 500 years of progress in maths will be reviewed, to see where it is going next and ask whether we are truly living in a mathematical Golden Age.

A lecture by Chris Budd, Gresham Professor of Geometry 30 April 2019

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/500-years-mathematics-golden-age

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

'Go to the Exchange, crave gold as you intend.'' (William Haughton, Englishmen for My Money, 1598). Sir Thomas Gresham's first great contribution to the life of London was the Royal Exchange, the purpose-built merchants' bourse which opened in 1567.

Why did Gresham finance and build it? What did Londoners (and others) do there? And what does the Exchange tell us about Gresham's ambitions both for himself and for London?

A lecture by Professor Stephen Alford, University of Leeds 8 May 2019

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/greshams-exchange

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

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Recent advances in medical science have brought complex ethical dilemmas, particularly around the beginning of human lives (abortion, embryo research, IVF, gene therapy, stem cells) and its ending (switching off ventilators, persistent vegetative state (PVS) and ‘dying with dignity’ or assisted suicide).

Although none of these topics occurs directly in the New Testament, references to ‘life’ abound, and healing was the centre of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Can our approach enable the Biblical material to assist contemporary medical debates?

A lecture by Richard Burridge, Visiting Professor of Ethics and Theology 25 April 2019

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/meaning-value-sanctity-life

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

There is far more to piano accompaniment than meets the ear or eye. Vocal celebrities are reliant on an accompanist's skills in indisputably great music composed for an equal partnership of voice and piano, and yet the hard-working pianist's public profile seldom matches that of the singer. Skills developed over many years are often accorded faint praise and small fees.

Graham Johnson examines a problematic profession that continues to attract many gifted young pianists to its ranks and asks why.

A lecture by Graham Johnson OBE, British classical pianist and Lieder accompanist 7 May 2019

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/unacclaimed-accompanist

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

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What happens when doctors and parents cannot agree on whether a child should be given experimental medical treatment? Why is there any question mark over a parent's right to decide if medical treatment for their child continues?

From the parents of Ashya King who successfully secured proton beam therapy for their son to the despair surrounding baby Charlie Gard and his life-limiting genetic disorder: how does the court make decisions that can potentially prolong life or bring about the death of a child?

In this lecture, Professor Jo Delahunty is joined by Dr Imogen Goold.

A lecture by Jo Delahunty QC and Dr Imogen Goold, Gresham Professor of Law and Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford 2 May 2019

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/child-medical-treatment

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Support the show