Profile
Stefan Sarkadi
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About Me:
I am an academic that wants to understand how machines can deceive us and each other. I have lived in London for 7 years and wouldn’t want to leave anytime soon. I love swimming, movies, traveling, and food. My favourite fictional characters are Batman and Sherlock Holmes.
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My pronouns are:
he/him
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My Work:
My work is about understanding what it means for AI to deceive and tell lies. I do this by running computer simulations, conducting user studies, and thinking about how to represent things with symbols (maths).
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My Typical Day:
I wake up and have a coffee. After the coffee, I am able to decide whether it’s time to do some work. Most of the times I go to the university to work with my colleagues. Other times, I work from home. There’s no such thing as a typical day for an AI researcher. One can get easily lost in their work if they find it interesting.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
I would use it to run a workshop to understand how secondary school students relate to deceptive AI, and to educate them about this topic.
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Education:
I completed my high school education in Romania. Then, I ended up doing Philosophy for my undergraduate degree because the queue for enrolling into a Psychology degree was too long – I had to go to the uni there in person and apply. After that, I still had so many questions about how the mind works and what is intelligence, so I decided to come to the UK and pursue postgraduate degrees that aimed to satisfy my curiosity.
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Qualifications:
1. High school completion and Bacalaureate certificate, Romania.
2. Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, West University of Timisoara, Romania.
3. Master of Science in Mind, Language and Embodied Cognition (Cognitive Science), The University of Edinburgh, UK.
4. PhD in Computer Science (Artificial intelligence), King’s College London, UK.My school education gave me a solid foundation in mathematics and computer science. My undergraduate in Philosophy taught me how to think critically, how to better understand and build concepts. My postgraduate degree in Cognitive Science helped me learn the advanced concepts, principles, and techniques of understanding the mind – both human and non-human. My PhD degree helped me develop my research skills and apply them to my current work at the intersection of AI and Intelligence Analysis.
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Work History:
2023-present:Lecturer, Department of Informatics, King’s College London, UK.
2022-present: Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow, Department of Informatics, King’s College London, UK.
2020-2021: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Inria & 3IA Cote D’Azur, France.
2018: Visiting PhD Researcher, Media Lab, MIT, USA.
2016-2020: PhD Researcher & Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of Informatics, King’s College London, UK.
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Current Job:
Proleptic Lecturer in Artificial intelligence & RAEng Intelligence Community Research Fellow
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Employer:
King’s College London, UK
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
deceptive AI investigator
What did you want to be after you left school?
I had no idea what I wanted to be after I left school.
Were you ever in trouble at school?
I used to get in trouble from time to time. Never liked school that much, I just liked to learn things.
If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?
A screenwriter or director.
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Arctic Monkeys and Eminem
What's your favourite food?
Sarmale with polenta
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
I wish I could speak a few more languages, travel for free, and teleport.
Tell us a joke.
How do you tie the computer scientist to their AI agent? No clue, but you can't use Markov Chains because they'll probably escape to a different state.
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My Comments