Students from Trinity College Dublin have secured places in the final of The Irish Times third-level debating competition.
Matilda Brewe from TCD Phil progressed as the top individual speaker in Friday night’s semi-final, while students Stephen O’Sullivan and Ellen McKimm from the TCD Bram Stoker Club made it a clean sweep for the university.
The semi-final, which took place at the UCD, debated the motion that “this house believes artificial intelligence (AI) is overhyped”.
The judges held that Brewe was the only speaker “to articulate why we should be so suspicious of the people behind the AI hype”.
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O’Sullivan and McKimm were chosen by the judges because they “managed best to articulate the scale of the changes we may expect from AI technology”.
The judging panel included former Irish Times Debate winners Dara Keenan and Glory Anumudu, former Irish Times Debate runner-up Kevin Brennan and presenter of the Irish Times Inside Politics podcast Hugh Linehan.
The debate was chaired by Chikemka Abuchi-Ogbonda, a legal associate and former Irish Times Debate team winner.
The remaining semi-finals are due to take place next week.
The other speakers at Thursday’s semi-final were team members Rob Fitzpatrick and Shane Tully of UCD’s L&H and Alimat Babatunde and Laura Campion of UCD LawSoc.
Individual speakers were Ayman Memon of UCD’s L&H and Oisín Ward, both of Trinity College Dublin’s Phil.
The final of the debate will take place at TU Dublin in February and will be chaired by Chief Justice of Ireland Donal O’Donnell.
The longest running third-level debating competition, The Irish Times debate is in its 63rd year.
Previous winners include broadcaster Marian Finucane, comedian Dara Ó Briain, writer Gerry Stembridge and the late Adrian Hardiman.
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