AI & Machine Learning

Automation Without Artificial Intelligence? Understanding Robotic Process Automation

FREE October 8, 2021 @ 11:00am - 12:30pm ET
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Overview
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Overview

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is the automation of office processes through the development of robots or more specifically, software applications, which fully or partially automate office tasks normally performed by humans. RPA is proposed to provide several benefits including gains in accuracy, efficiency, and speed as well as freeing workers from tedious tasks to focus on higher-value tasks. But, it is not widely understood particularly as intelligent automation moves from tedious tasks into more complex tasks. 

The purpose of this webinar is a general discussion of RPA designed to give attendees broad exposure to what RPA is and how its being used, what technical work is being done that moves RPA into the decision process and legal considerations in automated decision-making.

This webinar is part of our Applied Privacy Research Collaboration Network. This project was funded by the National Science Foundation to facilitate dialogue between the academic community and industry on topics related to data protection and privacy.

Presenters include:

  • Elizabeth Arledge, University of Virginia, PhD Student – Robotic Process Automation In Simple Terms; Background and Use (Slides)
  • Maximilian Voelker, M, Sc and PhD Student, University of Potsdam, Germany  – Toward Decision Management in Robotic Process Automation (Slides)
  • Professor Markku Suksi, Abo Akademi University Finland, – Administrative due process when using automated decision-making (Slides)

Speakers

Markku Suksi

Professor of Public Law, Åbo Akademi University, Finland

Markku Suksi is a Professor of Public Law at Åbo Akademi University, Finland with areas of interest in regulation of automatized decision-making and artificial intelligence, fundamental rights, sub-state governance through territorial autonomy, linguistic rights, and elections and referendums. He acted as panel chair at two conferences on AI-related matters during 2019, the Council of Europe conference entitled “Governing the Game Changer – Impacts of artificial intelligence development on human rights, democracy and the rule of law” and the European Union conference entitled “How to Ensure the Resilience of our Societies in a Changing European Landscape – the Interaction between Democracy, the Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights”. He has also organized two conferences at Åbo Akademi University on related topics, Opening the Black Box – Regulatory Perspectives on Automatized Decision-Making in 2019 and The Rule of Law and Automatized Decision-Making in Public authorities in 2021, both in collaboration with the SHIFT Business Festival. Suksi’s publications exceed 200 titles (articles and monographs).

 

Maximilian Vöelker

Research Assistant and Ph.D. Student, Hasso Plattner Institute, University of Potsdam

Maximilian Völker is a research assistant and Ph.D. student at the Hasso Plattner Institute, University of Potsdam in Germany. During his master’s studies in IT Systems Engineering, he focused on the field of process mining in the context of resource behavior analysis. He was also involved in the SMile research project, which investigated possibilities for intelligent last-mile delivery of parcels. After completing his master’s degree, he joined the Business Process Technology group at the HPI and shifted his focus to Robotic Process Automation. In particular, he is researching improvements for the design and development phases of RPA bots, such as for modeling complex decision logic or for enhancing the overall modeling process by using ontologies.

 

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