South Hams residents are being invited to two public meetings in Totnes to discuss how artificial intelligence (AI) should be governed.

The meetings come as AI plays an increasing role in society and amid plans for what has been described as the UKs biggest data centre at Great Torrington in mid-Devon.

Assemble Totnes part of Totnes Community Assemblies is hosting its first public talk on Sunday, October 11, at 1:45 at the Civic Hall, where local AI experts will set out the key aspects of AI, its risks and benefits and will answer questions and inform the discussion.

The second meeting will take place on October 18 at 1.30 pm at Civic Hall.

The two free events are welcoming members of the public to find out about AI and share their ideas for how to govern it.

The findings from both of these Assemblies will feed questions and ideas into the second sitting of the House of the People, the world's first citizens' Assembly on AI, which is being held in Manchester from November 27 to November 29.

A spokesperson for Assemble Totnes said: "AI is currently used in our courts, police forces and workplaces, our communities and on our children's phones.

"While it promises breakthroughs in medicine, AI is frequently used without our knowledge or consent, with questionable accuracy and data privacy."

"A proposed new data centre in Lincolnshire could cause five times the emissions of Birmingham Airport, while the proposal for Great Torrington, the biggest in the country, has generated huge local resistance.

"Various economists worry that UK pension schemes are heavily invested in AI stocks that are dangerously overvalued and in danger of collapsing in a bubble.

"With so much at stake, it’s crucial that we get together as a community to find out what questions to ask and what to do with the answers."

The Community Assembly in Totnes on November 18 will produce questions, ideas and recommendations to help determine the scope of the deliberations in the House of the People in Manchester.

It builds on 14 previous Assemblies in Totnes and the surrounding area over the past year.

After a summer hiatus, locals are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to attend more Assemblies, which give a structured format for all to learn, talk to and hear each other out.

Roger Hallam, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, and Insulate Britain, will also speak on November 11 about Assemble, he said: "AI is not about ‘AI’; it is about the catastrophic moral corruption of elites that think a 10 per cent chance of human extinction is just another news item."

"The response cannot be just another campaign but a political revolution to replace the psychopaths with citizens' assemblies of ordinary people who decide whether we want to play games with endless mass death."

To register for the talk on Sunday October 11 at 1.45PM at the Civic Hall, please visit: https://tinyurl.com/nncp38wp

To register for the Citizens’ Assembly on AI, on November 18 at 1.30PM at the Civic Hall, please visit: https://tinyurl.com/3nfk5ae6