Maria M. Hedblom

Being the AI-representative for the School of Engineering towards media, I have had the privilege to speak on live radio a few times in the past years.

Earlier today, I was invited to partake in “Eftermiddag i P4 Jönköping” (in Swedish only) to talk about AI generated content on social media, AI chatbots who talk to one another and the Dead Internet Theory.

It is always really fun, and a bit nerve-racking to speak to an audience of some 100.000 listeners!! But with only around 3 minutes of talking time, you take your fabricated fame and hope that those that listened learned something valuable!

The position in which I can spread knowledge is the highest honour I’ve been given and so I’m doing my best to deserve the influence it might have.

On the 28th, I was invited by Ronnie Dovskog at Senioruniversitetet i Växjö to speak about AI: for good and evil in their technology lecture series!😇👿

To the event, some 100 people showed up to learn how new technology is being used – both for good and for bad, ask questions, and laugh as we were prompting the AI chatbot to write Haiku poetry and make funny pictures – all in the name of “using AI for good”!

Being a true believer of Lifelong learning, Senioruniversitetet is easily one of the coolest and most active organisations I have had the honour to participate in as a speaker! I am genuinely looking forward to the day when I pass the eligibility criteria to join!

While holding an open lecture on AI at the Library in Söderköping, I was interviewed by journalist Tobias Pettersson from the local newspaper Länstidningen Östgötland. If you are curious, you find the article here (in Swedish only):

https://app.retriever-info.com/go-article/057490202510214887aa6e3cc4faa59700587758983fbc/null/archive/search?type=jwt

With approximately 20% acceptance rate, I am happy to announce that the paper we wrote from the master student I supervised, Miranda R. Martínez Rodriguez, got accepted at The 26th International Conference on Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems.

The paper “An LLM and Embeddings-based Multi-Agentic System for Knowledge Graph Construction and Verification” contains the work she did for her master thesis at Volvo where she was supervised by Ali Nouri and Zhennan Fei, and by me at the university.

🧑‍🏫 As one of the speakers for Folkuniversitetet‘s lecture series, last week I was invited to speak about AI at the libraries in Mönsterås, Emmaboda and Söderköping. As such the week represented the kick-start of my focus on the academic the 3rd Mission under the second half of 2025.

🤖📰 In Mönsterås and Emmaboda I presented the talk “𝘈𝘐 𝘧𝘳å𝘯 𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘬𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘦𝘵” (𝘈𝘐 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘍𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺) aiming to demystify some of the misconceptions of AI, and by taking part in Söderköping library’s lecture series on democracy, I focused on generative AI, fake news and societal manipulation in the talk “𝘒𝘢𝘯 𝘷𝘪 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘢 𝘱å 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘧𝘭ö𝘥𝘦𝘵?” (𝘊𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘸?)

🤝 While in the Kalmar region, I also took the opportunity to visit Garrit Schaap at Linnaeus University to learn more about their educational programs, discuss joint research and to get to know some of the researchers at Institutionen för datavetenskap och medieteknik. Thank you, I felt very welcomed by the team!

📆 For the curious, next week I continue with new 3rd mission talks:
– Tuesday at 14.00, at Jönköping Asecs‘ Kulturtisdagar, with the talk “𝘈𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘴: 𝘕𝘰𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘴, ”𝘧𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘸𝘴” 𝘰𝘤𝘩 𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘵𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘴 𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯”, and
– Wednesday at 18.30, in Örkelljunga Library with the talk “𝘈𝘐 𝘧𝘳å𝘯 𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘬𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘦𝘵”.

🙏 Many thank to the organisers and Folkuniversitetet for the opportunity! I am truly very honoured to participate in knowledge dissemination to the public!

Last week, the ninth edition of the interdisciplinary workshop The Image Schema Day (ISD9) was held at the UNESCO World Heritage site, The Benedictine Monastery (Italy), as part of the 15th International Conference for Formal Ontology in Information Systems (FOIS).

📖 Truly multidisciplinary, the workshop focused on research on conceptual primitives and work was presented and discussed from perspectives in linguistics, robotics, computer science, film aesthetics, design and philosophy.

🗣 Many thanks to all contributing authors (and the PC!) and a special thanks to the speakers who made the workshop fun, educational and inpirational: Nikolaos Tsiogkas, Henri-Jacques Geiß, Maarten Coëgnarts, maria rosaria stufano melone, Oliver Kutz, Stefano De Giorgis, Cordula Baur, David Romand and Jamie Macbeth.

🙏 Also a thumbs up to the FOIS chair Maria Keet and the International Association for Ontology and its Applications (IAOA), the local organsiers at Università di Catania, and the JOWO chairs Patrick Lambrix and John Beverley.

🎊 Next year, the ISD workshop series celebrates its 10th anniversary! To honour this milestone, as organisers, myself and Oliver Kutz are planning something BIG! Don’t miss the opportunity to participate!! Start planning your contributions already!! 🤔🔬✍️

As the representative from JTH, I was an invited speaker at Folkuniversitetet’s “JU Live” on March 27th, 2025. My talk “Artificiell intelligens: Nobelpris, ”fake news” och framtidens science fiction” directed to the general public, gathered an AI-interested bunch of individuals and fostered an interesting discussion afterwards.

The university published an article on the talk. For those interested, you can read it here:
https://ju.se/center/spark/en/news/news-archive/2025-03-28-great-interest-in-ai-lecture.html