Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
Maike Osborne in conversation with Christina Slade — 24 July 2026
Christie Slade, President of the Royal Society of NSW, will be talking with some of the very many distinguished Australians who live and work outside Australia.
The first of these distinguished guests is Maike, formerly Michael, Osborne.
Osborne is Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Oxford and is internationally recognised for her contributions to Bayesian optimisation, probabilistic modelling, and safe exploration. Her work sits at the intersection of mathematically rigorous machine learning, Bayesian reasoning and optimisation, AI safety and responsible innovation, and the social and economic implications of automation. She brings a deeply human dimension to her science — her lived experience as a trans academic leader .
In this conversation, we trace Maike’s history, from a childhood in Western Australia and a stellar career at the University of Western Australia through a period at ANSTO (in association with UNSW) and then on scholarship to New College in Oxford. We discuss her Bayesian approach to AI and Machine Learning, a how that differs from deep mind LLM pattern-based models. Osborne describes the Mind Foundry, a company co-founded with Stephen Roberts in Oxford, which offers a more ‘transparent and truthful’ approach to AI. The company has now divided — one branch looks at defence related issues of sensory environments, the other works with insurance giants on the issues of the risks of AI.
In 2013, Osborne published a paper with the economist Carl Frey which fundamentally reshaped global thinking about automation and employment. That work continues; for Osborne workforce disruption is one of the major risks of AI.
Osborne is a visible and thoughtful voice as a trans academic leader. Her work reminds us that AI is not just a technical field—it is a human one. It touches on uncertainty, risk, identity, labour, ethics, and the future of knowledge itself.
Maike Osborne in conversation with Christina Slade — 24 July 2026
Christie Slade, President of the Royal Society of NSW, will be talking with some of the very many distinguished Australians who live and work outside Australia.
The first of these distinguished guests is Maike, formerly Michael, Osborne.
Osborne is Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Oxford and is internationally recognised for her contributions to Bayesian optimisation, probabilistic modelling, and safe exploration. Her work sits at the intersection of mathematically rigorous machine learning, Bayesian reasoning and optimisation, AI safety and responsible innovation, and the social and economic implications of automation. She brings a deeply human dimension to her science — her lived experience as a trans academic leader .
In this conversation, we trace Maike’s history, from a childhood in Western Australia and a stellar career at the University of Western Australia through a period at ANSTO (in association with UNSW) and then on scholarship to New College in Oxford. We discuss her Bayesian approach to AI and Machine Learning, a how that differs from deep mind LLM pattern-based models. Osborne describes the Mind Foundry, a company co-founded with Stephen Roberts in Oxford, which offers a more ‘transparent and truthful’ approach to AI. The company has now divided — one branch looks at defence related issues of sensory environments, the other works with insurance giants on the issues of the risks of AI.
In 2013, Osborne published a paper with the economist Carl Frey which fundamentally reshaped global thinking about automation and employment. That work continues; for Osborne workforce disruption is one of the major risks of AI.
Osborne is a visible and thoughtful voice as a trans academic leader. Her work reminds us that AI is not just a technical field—it is a human one. It touches on uncertainty, risk, identity, labour, ethics, and the future of knowledge itself.
