Outreach
Writing, videos, interviews and talks about my work and about AI.
Blog
Notes on things I build with AI, and the occasional detour into the maths of networks. The 2016 posts are from my PhD years.
2026
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Making a video series about AI risk, with AI
How I turned seven arguments about AI risk into seven short animated films in Icelandic and English in about two days, with a cloned voice, a few hundred generated images, and a set of agents doing most of the production while I approved three things.
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A percolation screensaver
The bootstrap percolation animation from the front page of this site, rebuilt as a native macOS screensaver with six color themes and a proper configuration sheet.
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Turning recorded D&D sessions into comics
A small pipeline that records a session on a Zoom H1 Essential, transcribes the Icelandic audio with ElevenLabs, and renders each session as a graphic novel with gpt-image-2 and a set of reference images that keep the cast looking consistent across pages.
2016
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Leaky integrate and fire neurons (LIF)
A simple, widely-used membrane-voltage model of biological neurons. We motivate it from Hodgkin and Huxley's experiments, write down the differential equations, and explore the dynamics with an interactive D3 simulation.
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Percolation with inhibition - part 2
Modelling the percolation-with-inhibition process as a Markov chain on the potential of a single vertex, with an interactive D3 visualisation of the chain, a histogram of stopping times, and a running estimate of the probability of activation.
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Percolation with inhibition - part 1
Adding inhibitory vertices to bootstrap percolation. An interactive simulation with green and red nodes shows how competing positive and negative messages shape activity in the graph.
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Asynchronous bootstrap percolation
Bootstrap percolation without synchronous rounds — when edge delays are random the activity percolates much faster, in constant expected time.
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Bootstrap percolation
A graph-based process that models the spread of activity in a network, with an interactive vis.js simulation on the Erdős–Rényi random graph.
Videos
Could AI destroy us?
Gæti gervigreindin grandað okkur?
A seven-part explainer series on AI risk that I made in October 2026, in Icelandic and English.
In the media
Interviews, op-eds and broadcasts, mostly in Icelandic and mostly about AI and society.
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Kári Stefánsson's podcast: will AI destroy us or save us?
Hlaðvarp Kára Stef: Mun gervigreindin tortíma okkur eða bjarga?
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The Red Table, 5 October: the economy, SÁÁ, psychiatric drugs, violence and AI
Rauða borðið 5. okt: Efnahagsmál, SÁÁ, geðlyf, ofbeldi og gervigreind
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When was the first GPT language model introduced?
Hvenær var fyrsta GPT-mállíkanið kynnt til sögunnar?
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When and where did the development of large language models begin?
Hvenær og hvar hófst þróun stórra mállíkana?
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How can large language models solve tasks they were never specifically taught?
Hvernig geta stór mállíkön leyst verkefni sem þeim hefur ekki verið kennt sérstaklega að leysa?
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Tortímir gervigreindin mannkyninu?
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Skynet is a long way off, but Icelandic authorities need to be prepared
Skynet langt undan en íslensk stjórnvöld þurfa að vera undirbúin
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We do not need to buy AI sovereignty from abroad
Við þurfum ekki að kaupa gervigreindarfullveldið að utan
Show 33 earlier appearances Hide earlier appearances
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AI often relies on unreliable sources, a new study finds
Gervigreind notar oft ótraustar heimildir samkvæmt nýrri rannsókn
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Can AI be trusted in a conversation about the EU?
Er hægt að treysta gervigreindinni í samtali um ESB?
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AI could influence the EU referendum vote
Gervigreindin gæti haft áhrif á ESB-atkvæðagreiðsluna
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Enormous interests at stake if the technology falls into the wrong hands
Gífurlegir hagsmunir í húfi ef tæknin kemst í rangar hendur
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Is it sensible to reduce the number of people learning Icelandic?
Er skynsamlegt að fækka þeim sem læra íslensku?
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Have you sunk into the AI swamp?
Hefur þú sokkið í gervigreindarfen?
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AI is not flawless, but it is here to stay
Gervigreind er ekki gallalaus en hún er komin til að vera
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Stærsti þjófnaður allra tíma
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Can AI sycophancy lead to AI-induced psychosis?
Getur gervigreindarsmjaður leitt til gervigreindargeðrofs?
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Can AI write articles for the Science Web?
Getur gervigreind skrifað greinar á Vísindavefnum?
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Death cafés, what is behind AI?, and the latest from the royal families
Dauðakaffi, hvað býr að baki gervigreind? og það nýjasta úr heimi konungsfjölskyldna
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Live broadcast: AI and science communication
Bein útsending: Gervigreind og vísindamiðlun
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What mathematics lies behind AI?
Hvaða stærðfræði liggur að baki gervigreind?
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Aware of four suicides linked to AI
Veit um fjögur sjálfsvíg tengd gervigreind
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The budget bill, Icelandic and kindness
Fjárlagafrumvarp, íslenska og kærleikur
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Slor út um allt
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ESB, meindýr og gervigreind
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Unfortunate if a fake image casts blame on an innocent person
Óheppilegt ef fölsk mynd varpar sök á saklausan mann
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Sophisticated AI scams in Icelandic are imminent
Styttist í háþróuð gervigreindarsvindl á íslensku
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Los Angeles, parliament and Greenland
LA, þingið og Grænland
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The AI race, the special forces, well-being and more
Kapphlaup gervigreindarinnar, Sérsveitin, velsæld o.fl.
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Ferðaþjónusta, gervigreind og málverkafalsanir
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Brimbretti, gervigreind og afbrot
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AI water usage projected at up to 6.6 billion cubic metres by 2027
Vatnsnotkun gervigreindar áætluð allt að 6,6 milljarðar rúmmetra árið 2027
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Smells of the 19th century, DeepSeek, children's sleep and more
Lykt á 19. öld, DeepSeek, svefn barna og fleira
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The handball World Cup, AI and glaciers
HM í handbolta, gervigreind og jöklar
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On AI prejudice, Gísli Marteinn, and what you can do to make an impact
Af fordómum gervigreindar, Gísla Marteini og því sem þú getur gert til að hafa áhrif!
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Can code medical records in Icelandic
Geta kóðað sjúkraskýrslur á íslensku
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Sora technology makes videos of nearly anything possible
Sora-tæknin gerir myndbönd af öllu mögulegu mögulegt
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200 million ISK grant to develop an AI language model
200 milljóna styrkur til að þróa gervigreindarmállíkan
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AI, inflation and Ukrainian chicken on Sprengisandur
Gervigreind, verðbólga og úkraínskur kjúklingur í Sprengisandi
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We must intervene before AI takes over
Verðum að grípa inn í áður en gervigreindin tekur völdin
Talks
Since 2021 I have given 61 talks at research venues, schools, healthcare institutions and professional associations.
2026
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AI and our jobs: what do we know now?
BSRB union representatives' symposium, Reykjavik, Iceland
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Talk at the SAR forum
SAR málþing, Reykjavik, Iceland
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Results of the Icelandic AI usage survey
AI usage survey presentation, Reykjavik, Iceland
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Research seminar
Amgen deCODE, Reykjavik, Iceland
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Eru risamállíkön verri á íslensku? (Are large language models worse at Icelandic?)
UTmessan — AI Norðurljós track, Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI in clinical practice
Læknadagar (Icelandic Medical Days), Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI for medical students
Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
2025
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KatlaCode in the TrustLLM context
TrustLLM / KatlaCode presentation
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Talk at Vísindavefurinn's 25th anniversary
Vísindavefurinn 25th anniversary, Reykjavik, Iceland
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TrustLLM project presentation
TrustLLM consortium meeting
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Prompt engineering for researchers
Prompt engineering workshop, Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI in nursing
Icelandic Nurses' Association (Félag hjúkrunarfræðinga), Reykjavik, Iceland
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Data quality for AI
SKÝ data quality conference, Reykjavik, Iceland
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Teachers' attitudes and perceptions of AI usefulness in academia
ICERI 2025
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University of Iceland teachers' attitudes and experience with generative AI
Menntakvika 2025, Reykjavik, Iceland
2024
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AI and society in Iceland
Þjóðarspegillinn (Mirror of the Nation), Icelandic social sciences conference, Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI and continuing education
Símennt continuing education forum, Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI in health and life sciences
Life and Health Sciences conference, Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI in education research
Menntakvika 2024, Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI in design
NordDesign 2024
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Applications of BERT models towards automation of clinical coding in Icelandic
NAACL 2024 Findings, Mexico City, Mexico
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Clinical AI in Iceland
Landspítali (Icelandic National University Hospital), Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI in biology
Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
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Talk on AI
Veritas conference, Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI in continuing education
Continuing education conference (Framhaldsfræðsla), Reykjavik, Iceland
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Talk at the Science and Innovation Awards
University of Iceland Science and Innovation Awards (Vísinda- og nýsköpunarverðlaun), Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI in language teaching
Association of German Teachers in Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI and Icelandic language teaching
Association of Upper Secondary School Icelandic Teachers (Félag framhaldsskólakennara í íslensku), Reykjavik, Iceland
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Mistök gervigreindar (Mistakes of artificial intelligence)
UTmessan, Reykjavik, Iceland
2023
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AI in Nordic university administration
NUAS (Nordic University Administrators)
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AI in business
MBA Programme, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI in Nordic universities
NORRIC
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AI standards and governance
Standards Council of Iceland (Staðlaráð), Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI in adult education
Rannís adult education forum, Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI for lifelong learners
University of the Third Age (U3A), Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI in health sciences
School of Health Sciences, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
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HPC for language modelling
Icelandic HPC workshop, Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI and ethics
UNESCO forum on AI and Ethics
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AI and the legal profession
Bifröst University, Faculty of Law, Bifröst, Iceland
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Talk on AI
Kvasir, Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI in teaching
Icelandic Teaching Academy conference (Kennsluakademían), Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI in agricultural research
Agricultural University of Iceland (Landbúnaðarháskólinn), Hvanneyri, Iceland
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AI and psychology
Faculty of Psychology, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI and society
Rotary Club of Seltjarnarnes, Seltjarnarnes, Iceland
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AI in finance and banking
Central Bank of Iceland (Seðlabanki Íslands), Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI and the legal profession
Icelandic Bar Association (Lögfræðingafélag Íslands), Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI in higher education
University of Akureyri teaching conference, Akureyri, Iceland
2022
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Icelandic language resources for the ELRC
ELRC workshop, Reykjavik, Iceland
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Computer vision for fish stock assessment
Marine and Freshwater Research Institute of Iceland (Hafró), Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI for the curious
Vísindavaka (European Researchers' Night), Reykjavik, Iceland
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Icelandic resources at LREC
LREC 2022, Marseille, France
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AI in engineering education
Nordtek conference
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UTmessan 2022
UTmessan, Reykjavik, Iceland
2021
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HPC for language modelling
Icelandic HPC workshop, Reykjavik, Iceland
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Guest lecture on language technology
University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
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Research seminar
Amgen deCODE ML group, Reykjavik, Iceland
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Public talk on AI
Reykjavík City Library (Borgarbókasafn), Reykjavik, Iceland
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AI in education
Menntaþing (Education forum), Reykjavik, Iceland
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Talk on language technology and AI
Icelandic Language Technology Conference (Máltækniráðstefnan), Reykjavik, Iceland
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UTmessan 2021
UTmessan, Reykjavik, Iceland
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Nationally broadcast interview on AI
RÚV (Icelandic National Broadcaster), Reykjavik, Iceland
News
Papers, grants, talks and interviews, newest first. New posts are listed above.
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On Samstöðin's Rauða borðið, talking about whether AI development is out of control (in Icelandic).
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Interviewed by Vísir on whether AI will destroy humanity (in Icelandic).
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Group presenting seven papers at LREC 2026 in Palma de Mallorca.
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New paper on temporal vision-language features for fish classification (Ecological Informatics).
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Microsoft Lingua grant funded: developing LLM red-teaming datasets for Icelandic.
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Emil Harðarson completed his PhD on AI in regulated domains, with lessons from sleep medicine (I served on his committee), and Hörður Helgi Helgason and Yevhen Bilyi completed their MSc theses.
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Became Head of the Faculty of Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Iceland.
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A grant from Vísindi og velferð to develop an app for science literacy.
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MazeEval preprint: a benchmark for sequential decision-making in language models.
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FoQA: A Faroese question-answering dataset (RESOURCEFUL 2025).
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Three papers at NoDaLiDa/Baltic-HLT 2025: the Hotter and Colder sentiment corpus for Icelandic, and two studies of machine translation for Faroese.
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Co-organized NB-REAL 2025 (Nordic-Baltic Responsible Evaluation and Alignment of LMs) at NoDaLiDa / Baltic-HLT.
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Led the writing of the University of Iceland's AI policy.
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Four MSc students graduated: Alexander Guðmundsson, Joao Rodrigo Da Silva Martins, Margrét Snorradóttir and Steinar Bragi Sigurðarson. Joao continued to a PhD with me, in collaboration with the Marine and Freshwater Research Institute.
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Joined the Professional Council of the Technology Development Fund.
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Paper at EAMT 2024 in Sheffield with Annika Simonsen: a human evaluation of GPT-4 translations from Faroese to English.
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The clinical-coding work with Haraldur Orri Hauksson appeared in Findings of NAACL 2024.
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Three papers at LREC-COLING 2024 and its workshops in Turin, including a study of gender bias in Icelandic language models and GPT-4 sentiment analysis for Faroese.
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Spoke about the mistakes AI makes at UTmessan 2024.
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Founding member and vice-chair of the University of Iceland's new Centre for Artificial Intelligence.
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Promoted to Associate Professor of Computer Science.
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Co-founded the University of Iceland Centre for Artificial Intelligence.
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Co-founded KatlaCode.
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Haraldur Orri Hauksson completed his MSc on ICD-10 classification for Icelandic.
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Two papers at NoDaLiDa 2023 in Tórshavn: abstractive summarization for Icelandic, and how data encoding affects relation-triplet extraction.
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GameQA, a gamified mobile app for crowdsourcing question-answering datasets, presented at EACL 2023 in Dubrovnik.
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Four MSc students graduated: Annika Simonsen, Atli Snær Ásmundsson, Hrafnhildur Hauksdóttir and Þór Sverrisson. Annika stayed on for a PhD with me.
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Two papers at LREC 2022 in Marseille: Natural Questions in Icelandic, and a recipe for good language models from a clean crawled corpus (the IceBERT paper).
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Two MSc students graduated: Andrea Rakel Sigurðardóttir, on few-shot nematode detection with multispectral imaging, and Kim Cosmo Ström.
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University of Iceland grant to build a platform for Icelandic neologisms.
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Gave a keynote on AI at UTmessan 2021.
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Joined deCODE genetics (Amgen) as a scientist, alongside my position at the university.
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A student project I supervised on question answering for Icelandic received the incentive award in the University of Iceland's innovation competition.
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Vésteinn Snæbjarnarson completed his MSc on question answering for Icelandic and went on to a PhD in Copenhagen.
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Joined the University of Iceland as Assistant Professor of Computer Science.
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Became president of the Association of Computer Scientists in Iceland.
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University of Iceland grant to develop a course in digital literacy.
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Prescriby, the company I co-founded, received Sproti and Vöxtur grants from the Technology Development Fund, about 90 million ISK in total.