UA Science Lecture Series: 'Humans, Data and Machines'

When: January 29, 2018 7:00pm

The UA College of Science presents the second of six free lectures at Centennial Hall on "Humans, Data and Machines." In our automated lives, we generate and interact with unprecedented amounts of data. This sea of information is constantly searched, catalogued, analyzed and referenced by machines with the ability to uncover patterns unseen by their human creators. These new insights have far reaching implications for our society. From our everyday presence online, to scientists sequencing billions of genes or cataloging billions of stars, to cars that drive themselves – this series will explore how the confluence of humans, data and machines extends beyond science – raising new philosophical and ethical questions.

Mihai Surdeanu, UA associate professor of computer science and cognitive science, will give a talk titled "The Minds of Machines." The lecture will analyze questions regarding artificial intelligence (AI) and illustrate that AI does not think the way we think: Machines do not have a good way to represent and reason with world knowledge and they are not self-aware. Instead, AI is designed to automate and scale up pattern recognition for specific tasks. Because of this different goal, AI does perform better than humans at certain tasks. Surdeanu will review a series of problems where AI outperforms humans.

Parking is available on a pay-per-use basis in the Tyndall Avenue Garage.


Audience: All
Audience size: Very Large (501+)

Where

Campus: Main Campus

Address

Contact info & links

Contacts

Camille Celaya College of Science

Requests for disability-related accommodations should be directed to the event's primary contact: Camille Celaya