AI & Cognitive Science

The Science Festival provides the public with opportunities to explore and discuss issues of scientific interest and concern and to raise aspirations by encouraging young people to consider a career in science, technology, engineering or mathematics.

Each year, the Festival welcomes visitors to hundreds of events and receives extensive national and local media coverage. Over 170 event coordinators organise talks, interactive demonstrations, hands-on activities, film showings and debates with the assistance of around 1,000 staff and students from departments and organisations across the University and research institutions, charities and industry in the eastern region. In addition, over 150 people volunteer their time to act as stewards to ensure visitors have a safe and enjoyable Festival experience.

http://www.sciencefestival.cam.ac.uk/

Cambridge Science Festival 2016

cogcast

to-listen podcasts

IBM Research and Memorial Sloan Kettering are investigating the use of cognitive computing-based visual analytics for skin cancer image analysis. IBM's technical coordinator for the collaboration, Dr. Noel Codella, discusses how the system "sees" cancer to help doctors better-identify cancers such as melanoma.
Read more here: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/45710.wss

Using Cognitive Computing to Visually Analyze Skin Cancer

Speaker(s): Darryl Cunningham | An illustrated lecture by graphic journalist Darryl Cunningham based on his new book, Supercrash: How To Hijack The Global Economy, which traces the roots of our age of selfishness, the origins of the 2008 financial crisis and its consequences. He discusses who was to blame and how they got clean away with it. Darryl Cunningham (AcmeDarryl) is a cartoonist whose speciality is graphic journalism, investigating hard hitting topics in comic book form. He is the author of the highly acclaimed Psychiatric Tales and Science Tales, shortlisted for the British Comic Awards 2012: Best Book. Darryl’s latest book Supercrash: How to Hijack the Global Economy, a bullish analysis of our economic world - and what makes us tick, is published by Myriad. Danny Quah (@DannyQuah) is Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre and Professor of Economics and International Development at LSE. Just economics and politics? Think again. While LSE does not teach arts or music, there is a vibrant cultural side to the School - from weekly free music concerts in the Shaw Library, and an LSE orchestra and choir with their own professional conductors, various film, art and photographic student societies, the annual LSE photo prize competition, the LSE Literary Festival and artist-in-residence projects. For more information please view the LSE Arts and Music website.

Ayn Rand, the Financial Crisis and the Age of Selfishness [Audio]

In episode eighteen we talk with Sham Kakade, of Microsoft Research New England, about his expansive work which touches on everything from neuroscience to theoretical machine learning. Ryan Introduces us to active learning and we take a question on evolutionary algorithms. 

Active Learning and Machine Learning in Neuroscience

Human-level (“general”) AI is more difficult to achieve than most people think. One key obstacle is relevance, a conceptual version of the frame problem. Another is lack of the semantic web. Yet another is the difficulty of computer vision. So artificial general intelligence (AGI) isn’t on the horizon. Possibly, it may never be achieved. No AGI means no Singularity.

Even so, there’s already plenty to worry about—and future AI advances will add more. Areas of concern include unemployment, computer companions, and autonomous robots (some, military). Worries about the (illusory) Singularity have had the good effect of waking up the AI community (and others) to these dangers. At last, they are being taken seriously.

Professor Margaret Boden is a world-leading academic in the study of intelligence, both artificial and otherwise. She is is Research Professor of Cognitive Science at the Department of informatics at the University of Sussex, where her work embraces the fields of artificial intelligence, psychology, philosophy, cognitive and computer science. She was the founding-Dean of Sussex University’s School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences, a pioneering centre for research into intelligence and the mechanisms underlying it — in humans, other animals, or machines. The School’s teaching and research involves an unusual combination of the humanities, science, and technology.

Professor Boden has also been an important participant in the recent international discussions over the long-term impacts of AI. She was a member of the AAAI’s 08/09 Presidential Panel on long-term AI futures (http://www.aaai.org/Organization/presidential-panel.php), and also took part in the recent Puerto Rico conference on the Future of AI, co-organised by CSER (http://futureoflife.org/misc/ai_conference); she is therefore uniquely well-placed to discuss near- and long-term prospects in AI. 

Human - Level AI- Is It Looming Or Illusory?

What if you could bring the best version of yourself to everything you do everyday? What if you could get the most out of your mind and brain -- or more scientifically, your "cognitive performance" -- without going to those old addictive standbys like coffee or RedBulls?

The promise of nootropics or cognitive enhancers is to help us work better and more productively (for example, through more stamina and working memory); stay more awake and alert (without the sudden jolt of coffee); sleep better; and even protect our brains against cognitive impairments or neuro diseases like Alzheimer's.

Geoffrey Woo and Michael Brandt, the founders of Nootrobox, believe that nootropics are possible for everyone -- not just for a select or hobbyist fringe of society -- and that part of that mainstreaming will involve a lot of hard science, hard data, and frankly, good user experience and better packaging of raw components ... the same things, in fact, that helped mainstream personal computers from the days of the early hacking at the Homebrew Club to Apple and the world of mass computing today. But how does nootropics move beyond a community movement ... and how does it fit into the context of other trends such as biohacking, quantified self, and more? Is the human body really the next 'platform'? All this and more on this episode of the a16z Podcast.

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a16z Podcast: Nootropics and the Best Version of Your Brain, Yourself

Speaker(s): Professor Robin Wilson | Explore the mathematics of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and the Mayans. Robin Wilson is Emeritus Professor of Pure Mathematics at the Open University and a Visiting Professor in the Department of Mathematics, LSE. Jan van den Heuvel (@JanvadeHe) is Professor of Mathematics, Department of Mathematics, LSE. The LSE Department of Mathematics is internationally recognised for its teaching and research in the fields of discrete mathematics, game theory, financial mathematics and operations research.

Non-Western Mathematics [Audio]

Speaker(s): Professor Craig Calhoun | The world is given its contours, reality and limits partly by how it is imagined. Creativity, unrealistically ‘utopian’ thought and even the celebration of illusory ‘golden ages’ perform important roles alongside critical analysis of material conditions and practical possibilities. Art, religion, and social movements each play a vital part, though the power of imagination – and failures of imagination - extends even more widely. This lecture is given ahead of this year's LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival, which will be taking place from Monday 22 - Saturday 27 February 2016 with the theme "Utopias". Craig Calhoun (@craigjcalhoun) is Director and President of LSE. He is a world-renowned social scientist whose work connects sociology to culture, communication, politics, philosophy and economics. He took up his post as LSE Director on 1 September 2012, having left the United States where he was University Professor at New York University and director of the Institute for Public Knowledge and President of the Social Science Research Council. Emran Mian (@emranmian) is the Director of the Social Market Foundation, and author of Send In The Idiots and The Banker’s Daughter.

Can Imagination Change the World? [Audio]

Richard Grisenthwaite, Lead Architect and Fellow at ARM, talks about how the ARM architecture and the computing ecosystem it enables has changed in the 25 year history of ARM Ltd. Aimed at a technical audience, this talk looks at how the architecture has been influenced, sometimes in unexpected ways, by the changing environment and fashions, of the computing industry. It draws out some general lessons of the process of balancing the developments in hardware and software learnt from the progression of ARM to be one of the most popular architectures in the world. 

A history of the ARM architecture, and the lessons learned while building it

Do you think you make rational decisions? Think again... Ginny Smith turns your understanding of your brain upside down - and may even improve your decision-making! We'll be asking you to take part in some 'tricks of the mind' so please bring along an Internet-enabled device so you can play along with the show.


Your irrational brain: how we really make decisions

Your iTunes playlist may reveal more about you than you think. Science shows that the music we choose to listen to is not random. In fact, there is evidence that both our musical taste and abilities are tied to our personality and the way that we think. Dr David Greenberg explores how our preferences for musical genres and attributes map onto five different personality traits and three thinking styles. 

What does your musical taste say about your personality?

Can we build a machine that can solve any problem? How can we break a code others believe unbreakable? Why do leopards have spots and zebras stripes? These questions were all answered by Alan Turing. Mathematician James Grime explores Turing's childhood fascination with maths and how it led to the breaking of the infamous Enigma cipher. Including a demonstration of an original WWII Enigma Machine! 

Alan Turing and the Enigma Machine

While mathematicians are undoubtedly brilliant, there are still questions they can't answer. Every mathematical question is a puzzle and there'll be plenty of puzzles to chew on while mathematician Katie Steckles introduces questions that still leave mathematicians stumped, from simple-sounding number and shape problems to mind-bending fundamental questions. 

Maths' greatest unsolved puzzles

We live in a world surrounded by computers, and increasingly also robotics. But how do we get these machines to do what we want? Find out with Philip Garsed and Rachel Garsed in this fun and interactive demonstration, as they try to program their (suspiciously life-like...) robot to carry out a simple task. 

How to train your robot

What is intelligence? What is learning? Can we build computers and robots that learn? How much information does the brain store? How does mathematics help us answer these questions? Professor Zoubin Ghahramani takes us on a journey exploring these questions and leading us to the field of machine learning: the invisible algorithms underlying many of the tools we now use everyday.

Professor Ghahramani highlights some current areas of research at the frontiers of machine learning, including a project on developing an Automatic Statistician, and speculates on some of the future applications of computers that learn.

Zoubin Ghahramani is Professor of Information Engineering at the University of Cambridge, and the Cambridge Liaison Director of the Alan Turing Institute.


Intelligence and learning in brains and machines

How conscious is my dog? Can robots become conscious? Are people in a vegetative state conscious? Philosopher Professor Tim Crane and neuroscientist Dr Srivas Chennu look into our minds and wrestle with the meaning of what it is to be conscious. 

Brain, body and mind: new directions in the neuroscience and philosophy of consciousness

Alexandria Sage from Reuters explains how crumbling infrastructure is confusing self-driving cars.

Where's the lane? Self-driving cars confused by shabby U.S. roadways

Speaker(s): Professor Iris Bohnet | Gender equality is a moral and a business imperative. But unconscious bias holds us back, and de-biasing people’s minds has proven to be difficult and expensive. Diversity training programs have had limited success, and individual effort alone often invites backlash. Behavioral design offers a new solution. By de-biasing organisations instead of individuals, we can make smart changes that have big impacts. Presenting research-based solutions, Iris Bohnet hands us the tools we need to move the needle in classrooms and boardrooms, in hiring and promotion, benefiting businesses, governments, and the lives of millions. This event marks the publication of Iris Bohnet's new book, What Works: Gender Equality by Design. Iris Bohnet is a behavioral economist at Harvard University, where she is a professor, Director of the Women and Public Policy Program, and Co-Chair of the Behavioral Insights Group at the Kennedy School of Government. Carola Frege is Professor of International Employment Relations and Chair of the LSE Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Taskforce. The Department of Management (@LSEManagement) is a globally diverse academic community at the heart of the LSE, taking a unique interdisciplinary, academically in-depth approach to the study of management and organisations.