This is my page where I will attempt to draw together in one place the disparate bits of myself that are out there.
I am a Founder and COO of Cyberselves Universal Ltd, a software company based in Sheffield, UK.
I am also working as a Research Fellow at Sheffield Robotics and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Sheffield. My present project is the Wellcome Trust-funded Imagining Technologies for Disability Futures.
Check the menu up there to see more of what I do and where.
My colleague Tony Prescott and I were interviewed for a film that was presented at the Child Health Technology 2021 conference, followed by a Q&A with Paul Dimitri and the conference attendees.
A video of the interviews with Tony and I, along with the Q&A, can be found here:
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first staging of Karl Capek’s play R.U.R. – the play that gave the world the word ‘robot’, and proved to be a template for so many of our future stories about robots since – I wrote a piece for The Conversation‘s Insights series (which meant I got a good, longer go at explaining some of my ideas on the topic).
You can read the article here: https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK
I’m really grateful to The Conversation’s editorial team, especially Josephine Lethbridge, for their tremendous support and ideas.
I am most very pleased and proud to announce that Cyberselves is now an official spinout of the University of Sheffield. We are registered at Companies House and everything.
Please visit our website at cyberselves.com and leave us a message. Or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
Follow this link to subscribe to our newsletter, or email us at info@cyberselves.com
I had a lovely chat with Rambo of Nick and Rambo’s BUIHA Podcast fame, which he has kindly shared with the world here. It was great to have a chance to witter on freely about all things hockey.
So proud to have worked on this tome, Living machines: A handbook of research in biomimetics and biohybrid systems, with so many great minds and brilliant scholars. I edited one section, on ‘Perspectives’ (looking mostly at social and cultural impacts of living machines), and contributed an introduction to that section and a chapter, ‘Living machines in the cultural imagination.’ Do check it out; there’s something for everyone in the book with an interest in robotics, psychology, biomimetics, biohybrid systems, and (of course) the social, ethical. and cultural impacts of new technologies.
I was fortunate enough to join a panel for BBC Radio 3‘s programme Free Thinking on AI & Creativity with Joy Buolamwini, founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, Anders Sandberg from the Future of the Human Institute at Oxford, artist Anna Ridler.
The programme is part of a week-long focus on Free Thinking the Future, and connected to the Barbican Gallery’s exhibit, AI: More Than Human, which runs until August 26th 2019.
This is the second time I’ve appeared on a Free Thinking panel: the last time was here.
You can listen to the programme on the BBC Radio 3 website here.
In a recent video on Education 4.0, produced by Jisc, I give some thoughts on what the future of learning might look like. (My daughter also makes a couple of appearances, as do our robots.)
My colleague Tony Prescott appeared on BBC’s Sunday morning Live this past Sunday (8 July), and we brought Pepper down to interact with the hosts, Sean Fletcher and Cherry Healey. (That’s me wrangling the robot, or trying to.) Our robot and Tony feature from the very start, at 42 minutes in (especially from the 45th minute), and at the end. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0b9z98j/sunday-morning-live-series-9-episode-4
Not an interview, but a nice picture of me joining a lecture given by Prof Michele Migliore when I joined them in Palermo back in February for Esperienza inSegna 2018 to talk about Miro. (No, I didn’t talk to the students in Italian. Well, not much beyond ‘questo robot ha un cervello come a un mammifero’…)
MiRo, un rivoluzionario progetto di ricerca nel campo delle neuroscienze
Sometimes with all my professional activities I forget to make space for some of my other great loves here, ice hockey being one of them.
I’m really proud to be involved in selected and coaching this BUIHA International All-Stars, who will play the GB Universities Men’s team on 20 April, 2018 at Ice Sheffield, to help the GBU men prepare for their upcoming tournaments.
It should be a fantastic game, and a great atmosphere. Ticket information is available here.
Michael Szollosy 