STFC Astronomy and Artificial Intelligence Summer School with Public Engagement

Context

Summer School. As part of the Epistemic Insight Initiative of the LASAR (Learning about Science and Religion) research and outreach centre, an STFC Astronomy and Artificial Intelligence summer school with public engagement was organised by Prof Berry Billingsley and Dr James Pearson, held over five days from 8th-12th July 2024 at Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, UK. The summer school was aimed at astronomy PhD students as well as final year undergraduate & master's students in physics and computer science, and placed emphasis on a multidisciplinary approach of bringing together knowledge and researchers from different fields utilising AI, to devise solutions and create new opportunities. The summer school provided seminars, workshops and one-to-one conversations where participants could learn about current uses of AI, collaborate to co-create new projects and get expert perspectives on their work. Participants also explored and gained insights in three key areas:

1. What are the roles of AI in astronomy and in the sciences more broadly?
2. What do curiosity and knowledge creation look like in a world of AI?
3. Public engagement and working with AI and immersive technologies to engage new audiences in astronomy, which involved outreach training.

Public Engagement. There was also the opportunity for attendees to participate in outreach training and contribute to a public engagement event for schools, involving working with immersive tech to communicate ideas in astronomy, and assessing generative AI as a tool for creating activities and puzzles relating to their work. The outputs of this can be found here: https://futureofknowledge.com/q-and-a-with-astronomers/

Specialist Event and Case Studies. As part of this summer school, an additional free Astronomy and AI Online Event day was held the week before on Wednesday 3rd July 2024 to provide specialist talks and panel discussions about AI in astronomy, the recordings of which can be found here: https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.12674685. Alongside this event, a number of recorded case studies were released showcasing how researchers in astronomy are using AI and deep learning in their own work, which can be found here: https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.12594632

Principal Investigator: Prof Berry Billingsley (Epistemic Insight Initiative)
Project Manager: Dr James Pearson (The Open University)
Video Editor: Mina Cullimore (Canterbury Christ Church University)

Summer School Talks

Here, we provide the recordings and presentation slides of the various talks. Below is an outline of the summer school's online/hybrid sessions - see the main website for the full timetable and more details about each talk.

Monday 08 July - Big Questions stimulus and introductions
17.00-18.00 Plenary Session - Workshop lead: Mina Cullimore and Berry Billingsley
Tuesday 09 July - A multidisciplinary arena
09.30-10.45 A review of yesterday and setting the agenda for today - Berry Billingsley and Mina Cullimore
11.00-12.15 Thinking about astronomy and art – and working with virtual spaces - Mina Cullimore
13.15-14.30 Cultural views of astronomy and archaeoastronomy - Elfneh Bariso and Kevin Walsh
14.45-16.00 Working with GenAI and your tutor - William Beckwith-Chandler and Kevin Walsh
16.15-17.30 Power & Problems of the Search and Generative AI Scenarios - Ted Selker
Wednesday 10 July - Welcome to LASAR at CCCU
13.15-14.30 Explainable AI (XAI): AI for tomorrow's scientific computing - Konstantinos Sirlantzis
14.45-16.00 The future of AI: the loss of uncertainty - Philippe de Wilde
16.15-17.30 Big data in astronomy: contemplating a potential future - Matthew Graham