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 monthly digest


AAAI presidential panel – AI agents

AIHub

The Future of AI Research report, published in March 2025, aims to clearly identify the trajectory of AI research in a structured way. The report was led by outgoing AAAI President Francesca Rossi and covers 17 different AI topics . Members of the report team, and other selected AI practitioners, are taking part in a series of video panel discussions covering selected chapters from the report. In the fifth discussion in the collection, the three panellists tackle the topic of AI agents. How multi-agent systems evolved from rule-based systems to complex cooperative frameworks built on generative AI, and what is really different in the modern notion of an agentic AI system.


Design tweaks promote responsible AI use for environmental protection, research shows

AIHub

Artificial intelligence systems that ask users to pause to consider AI's energy consumption and environmental impacts are likely to reduce unnecessary AI use, new research by Oregon State University suggests. The findings, published in Science Communication, are important as AI is already using electricity on scales that can be meaningfully compared to households, factories and towns. For example, the electricity needed to train a large language model would power 120 homes for a year, the researchers note; one AI-generated image has roughly the same energy cost as charging a smartphone. With about 85% of the world's energy still coming from fossil fuels, every megawatt-hour that can be carved from AI's electricity profile is significant, says the study's leader, Cheng "Chris" Chen of the OSU College of Liberal Arts. "Despite AI's substantial environmental impacts, information about those impacts is rarely disclosed or effectively communicated to everyday users of AI systems," said Chen, assistant professor in the School of Communication.


Congratulations to the #AAMAS2026 best paper award winners

AIHub

The AAMAS 2026 best paper awards were presented at the 25th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, which took place from 25-29 May 2025 in Paphos, Cyprus. Lucy Smith is Senior Managing Editor for AIhub. Lucy Smith is Senior Managing Editor for AIhub. Eleanor Drage speaks with Tara Merk about how community-owned data centers could transform digital ownership and challenge the dominance of Big Tech. We find out more about multi-agent research for the allocation of scarce societal resources.


Forthcoming machine learning and AI seminars: June 2026 edition

AIHub

This post contains a list of the AI-related seminars that are scheduled to take place between 1 June and 31 July 2026. All events detailed here are free and open for anyone to attend virtually. Franco Accordino and Monika Lanzenberger (European Commission) The Digital Humanism (DIGHUM) Initiative The talk will be livestreamed on YouTube here . K Madhava Krishna (IIIT Hyderabad) Robotics Café The Google Meet link is here . Gianfranco Polizzi (University of Birmingham) Raspberry PI Sign up here to join.


The Good Robot podcast: the battle over data centres with Tara Merk

AIHub

Hosted by Eleanor Drage and Kerry McInerney, The Good Robot is a podcast which explores the many complex intersections between gender, feminism and technology. How can communities take back control of the digital infrastructure that powers everyday life? In this episode, Eleanor Drage speaks with Tara Merk about how community-owned data centers could transform digital ownership and challenge the dominance of Big Tech. The conversation explores alternative models of internet infrastructure that prioritize local empowerment, sustainability, and cooperative governance over corporate control. Drawing on examples from Germany's renewable energy sector and community-led initiatives, Merk reflects on how decentralized ownership models can create fairer and more environmentally responsible technological systems.


Image Empire – a new short film from Alan Warburton

AIHub

The film forms part of a research project undertaken by Alan Warburton which also includes a research paper and a series of satellite events. The film is based on doctoral research undertaken at Birkbeck's Vasari Centre for Art & Technology. It was commissioned by the National Videogame Museum in collaboration with the Open Data Institute (ODI) and Cambridge University's Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence . The ODI hosted a webinar on 6 May to discuss the content of the film. The panellists explored what AI can and can't do, what effects a collapse of real and virtual could have on visual culture, and if we're living in a post-truth world.


AIhub monthly digest: May 2026 – AI for science, the lottery ticket hypothesis, and world models

AIHub

Welcome to our monthly digest, where you can catch up with any AIhub stories you may have missed, peruse the latest news, recap recent events, and more. This month, we learn about AI for science, delve into world models, research transparent and trustworthy AI, and hear about the lottery ticket hypothesis. The latest interview in our series with the AAAI/SIGAI Doctoral Consortium participants featured Ximing Wen who is researching transparent and trustworthy AI systems. We found out more about her work, her experience as a research intern, and what inspired her to study AI. In this wide-ranging conversation, Jonathan Frankle delves into empiricism versus theoretical proofs, how the approach to computer science has changed (even if the fundamental problems haven't), how younger researchers are rapidly adapting to a world that values impact above all else, and what it means to be a researcher.


Half of AI health answers are wrong even though they sound convincing – new study

AIHub

Imagine you have just been diagnosed with early-stage cancer and, before your next appointment, you type a question into an AI chatbot: "Which alternative clinics can successfully treat cancer?" Within seconds you get a polished, footnoted answer that reads like it was written by a doctor. Except some of the claims are unfounded, the footnotes lead nowhere, and the chatbot never once suggests that the question itself might be the wrong one to ask. That scenario is not hypothetical. It is, roughly speaking, what a team of seven researchers found when they put five of the world's most popular chatbots through a systematic health-information stress test. The results are published in BMJ Open .


Report on foundation model impacts released

AIHub

Partnership on AI has published a progress report on post-deployment governance practices pertaining to foundation models. The document, entitled " 2026 Transparency Report on Foundation Model Impacts ", measures the progress of 13 foundation model providers* in publicly documenting the impacts of their foundation models. In carrying out their analysis, authors Jacob Pratt and Albert Tanjaya reviewed more than 150 papers, articles, websites, and reports. For assessment, these four practices were broken down into 19 processes, or activities, that support how foundation model providers adopt practices. Although several leading organizations are defining what information to share and how, the rest are slow in adopting information-sharing practices.


AI for Science – from cosmology to chemistry

AIHub

On the 31st March, our editorial team headed to the Royal Society for AI for Science . This day-long conference explored how AI is changing the nature of scientific discovery, and was hosted by the Fundamental Research team from the Alan Turing Institute. Nestled in a terrace of 19th century townhouses along the banks of the Thames, the Royal Society looks as grand as the names who have passed through its doors throughout the years. Prof Jason McEwen, Chief Scientist for the Turing Institute, opened the event with an insightful talk on the nature of scientific revolution, and how the bidirectional relationship between AI and science could spark the next one. Then, Prof Anna Scaife from the University of Manchester spoke on the use of foundation models for astronomical discovery.