Please join us at the next SPS Seminar, Teaching Machines to Think, presented by Dr. Valery Rousseau of the Physics Department. The seminar will be held Thursday, April 27th from 12:30-1:30 in Monroe 152.

"It is still considered science-fiction to give a robot a simple command, such as "go get me a beer from the fridge", and have it granted. However, the field of artificial intelligence (AI) has continuously been progressing. AI units have become common nowadays without the users necessarily being aware of them. Famous examples include Facebook's face recognition system and the Google translate program. In this talk I will explain, without entering into the mathematical details, how simple attempts to imitate nature allows us to program computers and robots in such a way that they can develop their own knowledge without any input from the programmer. This results in machines that are capable of making decisions based on their own experience and history, instead of simply outputting the programmer's mind. The first part of my talk will illustrate how a crude imitation of the basic structure of a human brain allows computers and robots not only to learn from examples, but also to generalize these examples and make guesses. The second part will illustrate how a simple implementation of human feelings, such as “pain” and “happiness”, allows computers and robots to develop their own strategy in order to reach their assigned goal, such as a four-legged robot learning how to walk, or a computer beating a chess champion. Overall, my talk will present some of the ideas that will be developed in the newly created course "Neural Networks & Applications" that will be offered next fall at Loyola." -Dr. Rousseau

Pizza & refreshments will be served!