Seminars

Quest | CBMM Seminar Series: Physical problem-solving in humans and machines

Mar 6, 2025 - 9:30 am
Venue:  Singleton Auditorium (46-3002) Address:  43 Vassar St., Cambridge, MA 02139 Speaker/s:  Kelsey Allen, DeepMind

Abstract: Every human culture we know of creates and re-purposes objects as tools to achieve their goals. These capabilities come so easily to us that we often forget how complex these behaviors are. Despite the universality of tool use in people, only a handful of other animals use objects in this way, and we tend to think of these as some of the most intelligent behaviors that other species display. In this talk, I will discuss my research program aiming to illuminate the computational and cognitive foundations of this kind of flexible physical problem-solving. By combining perspectives from cognitive science, machine learning, and robotics, my research suggests that the flexibility and efficiency of human physical problem-solving is supported by combining learning with structured knowledge in the form of objects, relations, and physics. These ingredients can explain both complex cognitive phenomena such as how people effortlessly learn to use new tools, and advanced capabilities in machines such as highly realistic simulation and tool innovation. By taking better advantage of problem structure, and combining it with general-purpose methods for statistical learning, we can develop more robust and data-efficient machine intelligence while also better explaining how natural intelligence learns so much from so little.

Organizer Email:  cbmm-contact@mit.edu

Quest | CBMM Seminar Series - A Theory of Appropriateness with Applications to Generative Artificial Intelligence

Mar 4, 2025 - 4:00 pm
Venue:  Singleton Auditorium (46-3002) Speaker/s:  Joel Leibo, senior staff research scientist at Google DeepMind and professor at King's College London

Abstract: What is appropriateness? Humans navigate a multi-scale mosaic of interlocking notions of what is appropriate for different situations. We act one way with our friends, another with our family, and yet another in the office. Likewise for AI, appropriate behavior for a comedy-writing assistant is not the same as appropriate behavior for a customer-service representative. What determines which actions are appropriate in which contexts? And what causes these standards to change over time? Since all judgments of AI appropriateness are ultimately made by humans, we need to understand how appropriateness guides human decision making in order to properly evaluate AI decision making and improve it. In this talk, I will present a theory of appropriateness: how it functions in human society, how it may be implemented in the brain, and what it means for responsible deployment of generative AI technology.

Organizer:  Kathleen Sullivan Organizer Email:  cbmm-contact@mit.edu

Quest | CBMM Seminar Series - Aligning deep networks with human vision will require novel neural architectures, data diets and training algorithms

Feb 11, 2025 - 4:00 pm
Venue:  Singleton Auditorium (46-3002) Speaker/s:  Thomas Serre, Brown University

Abstract: Recent advances in artificial intelligence have been mainly driven by the rapid scaling of deep neural networks (DNNs), which now contain unprecedented numbers of learnable parameters and are trained on massive datasets, covering large portions of the internet. This scaling has enabled DNNs to develop visual competencies that approach human levels. However, even the most sophisticated DNNs still exhibit strange, inscrutable failures that diverge markedly from human-like behavior—a misalignment that seems to worsen as models grow in scale.

In this talk, I will discuss recent work from our group addressing this misalignment via the development of DNNs that mimic human perception by incorporating computational, algorithmic, and representational principles fundamental to natural intelligence. First, I will review our ongoing efforts in characterizing human visual strategies in image categorization tasks and contrasting these strategies with modern deep nets. I will present initial results suggesting we must explore novel data regimens and training algorithms for deep nets to learn more human-like visual representations. Second, I will show results suggesting that neural architectures inspired by cortex-like recurrent neural circuits offer a compelling alternative to the prevailing transformers, particularly for tasks requiring visual reasoning beyond simple categorization.

Organizer:  Kathleen Sullivan Organizer Email:  cbmm-contact@mit.edu

Quest | CBMM Seminar Series - Conveying Tasks to Computers: How Machine Learning Can Help

Sep 10, 2024 - 4:00 pm
Venue:  Singleton Auditorium (46-3002) Speaker/s:  Michael Littman, Brown University

Abstract: It is immensely empowering to delegate information processing work to machines and have them carry out difficult tasks on our behalf. But programming computers is hard. The traditional approach to this problem is to try to fix people: They should work harder to learn to code. In this talk, I argue that a promising alternative is to meet people partway. Specifically, powerful new approaches to machine learning provide ways to infer intent from disparate signals and could help make it easier for everyone to get computational help with their vexing problems.

Bio: Michael L. Littman, Ph.D. is a Professor of Computer Science at Brown University and Division Director of Information and Intelligent Systems at the National Science Foundation. He studies machine learning and decision-making under uncertainty and has earned multiple awards for his teaching and research. Littman has chaired major conferences in A.I. and machine learning and is a Fellow of both the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and the Association for Computing Machinery. He was selected by the American Association for the Advancement of Science as a Leadership Fellow for Public Engagement with Science in Artificial Intelligence, has a popular YouTube channel and appeared in a national TV commercial in 2016. His book, "Code to Joy: Why Everyone Should Learn a Little Programming" was published in October 2023 by MIT Press.

Organizer:  Hector Penagos Organizer Email:  cbmm-contact@mit.edu

From Research to Impact: Half a Century Shaping the AI Frontier

Apr 18, 2024 - 11:00 am
Venue:  Online Webinar Speaker/s:  Amnon Shashua, Sachs Professor of Computer Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Founder & CEO, Mobileye. Tomaso Poggio, Eugene McDermott Professor in the Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences; Director of the Centre for Brains, Minds and Machines.

*Event time is 11:00pm EDT / 5:00pm CET - Registration required!*

Register for the event here.

Join us on a journey through the history of artificial intelligence (AI) from its early conceptual foundations to today’s Gen AI breakthroughs and tomorrow’s potential futures with:

  1. Amnon Shashua, Sachs Professor of Computer Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Founder & CEO, Mobileye.
  2. Tomaso Poggio, Eugene McDermott Professor in the Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences; Director of the Centre for Brains, Minds and Machines.

Discover the scientific mysteries of AI and of our brain, how to take it from the lab to global multi-billion companies, and how it is reshaping industries like transportation and banking, as well as our life. Why attend:

  • Expand your understanding of AI with two of the world’s best figures in AI’s history.
  • Learn about the technological and scientific innovations that shape the AI landscape today and tomorrow.
  • Explore the impact of AI in a number of industries from firsthand serial founders of multi-billion AI-first companies.
  • Learn exciting and innovative ways to build AI products as well as platforms for AI innovations.

During this session, we'll also gain insights into the perspectives on AI from Israel. The webinar is hosted by Theos Evgeniou, INSEAD Professor of Decision Sciences and Technology Management.

 

Organizer:  Tomaso Poggio Organizer Email:  theodoros.evgeniou@insead.edu

Quest | CBMM Seminar Series: Physical and Social Human-Robot Interaction with the iCub Humanoid

Mar 26, 2024 - 4:00 pm
Venue:  Singleton Auditorium (46-3002) Speaker/s:  Giorgio Metta, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT)

Abstract: The iCub is a humanoid robot designed to support research in embodied AI. At 104 cm tall, the iCub has the size of a five-year-old child. It can crawl on all fours, walk, and sit up to manipulate objects. Its hands have been designed to support sophisticate manipulation skills. The iCub is distributed as Open Source following the GPL licenses (http://www.iCub.org). More than 50 robots have been built so far which are available in laboratories across Europe, US, Korea, Singapore, and Japan. It is one of the few platforms in the world with a sensitive full-body skin to deal with the physical interaction with the environment including possibly people. In this talk I report about the work of two of research units of the Italian Institute of Technology whose focus is the design of methods to enable natural interaction with the iCub robot.

Bio: Giorgio Metta is the Scientific Director of the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT). He holds a MSc cum laude (1994) and PhD (2000) in electronic engineering both from the University of Genoa. From 2001 to 2002, Giorgio was postdoctoral associate at the MIT AI-Lab. He was previously with the University of Genoa and from 2012 to 2019 Professor of Cognitive Robotics at the University of Plymouth (UK). He was member of the board of directors of euRobotics aisbl, the European reference organization for robotics research. Giorgio Metta served as Vice Scientific Director of IIT from 2016 to 2019. He coordinated IIT's participation into two of the Ministry of Economic Development Competence Centers for Industry 4.0 (ARTES4.0, START4.0). He was one of the three Italian representatives at the 2018 G7 forum on Artificial Intelligence and, more recently, one of the authors of the Italian Strategic Agenda on AI. Giorgio coordinated the development of the iCub robot for more than a decade making it de facto the reference platform for research in embodied AI. Presently, there are more than 40 robots reaching laboratories as far as Japan, China, Singapore, Germany, Spain, UK and the United States. Giorgio Metta research activities are in the fields of biologically motivated and humanoid robotics and, in particular, in developing humanoid robots that can adapt and learn from experience. Giorgio Metta is author of more than 300 scientific publications. He has been working as principal investigator and research scientist in about a dozen international research as well as industrial projects.

Organizer:  Hector Penagos Organizer Email:  cbmm-contact@mit.edu

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