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NEU 290: The Science of Intelligence

The dual quests – to understand intelligence as it arises in biology and to build it in machines of our own making – have been with us for nearly a century.  While neuroscience and psychology seek to characterize intelligence in terms of underlying neural mechanisms and emergent behavior, we still lack a set of principles that can account for how the interactions of many neurons within a brain give rise to intelligent behavior.  Meanwhile, modern AI is following a largely empirical path to create a new technology without scientific foundation. While the resulting algorithms exhibit intriguing behavior, the working principles are unknown, usage risks are incalculable, and the path to further development is unclear.  The premise of this seminar is that the current century will see the emergence of a new scientific discipline – the Science of Intelligence – that seeks to elucidate universal principles that govern intelligent systems, be they biological or machine, and that this will provide both much needed insight in neuroscience and a solid foundation for technological development.  The seminar will meet weekly, featuring speakers from across campus and elsewhere, who will share their views on the open questions, topics of study and debate, and relevant disciplines that a science of intelligence will encompass.

Seminar meets weekly on Wednesdays at 12:00 (except for 9/17) in 101 Weill hall.  Most talks will also be simulcast by zoom.

Email list:  soi-seminar@lists.berkeley.edu

You can join the list either by sending a message to soi-seminar+subscribe@lists.berkeley.edu , or go here and click the button to join the list.

Enrollment info:

NEU 290 Section 3

Class #: 34613

Schedule:

August 26 What does it mean to learn a World Model?

David Klindt, Cold Spring Harbor Lab

Recording

September 2 One idea the science of intelligent systems needs

Steven Piantadosi, Psychology, UC Berkeley

Recording

September 9 Computational triviality and scaffolded intelligence

Rosa Cao, Philosophy, Stanford University

Recording

September 17
(note: Thursday at 11:00)
Understanding humans, animals, and machines

Gasper Begus, Linguistics, UC Berkeley

September 23 Conceptions of Intelligence in AI and in Cognitive Science: How They Differ and Why It Matters

Melanie Mitchell, Santa Fe Institute

September 30 What was intelligence?

Tobias Rees, founder and CEO of Limn

October 7 Nina Miolane, Electrical Engineering, UC Santa Barbara
October 14 Can Physics expedite artificial intelligence?

Eli Yablonovitch, Electrical Engineering, UC Berkeley

October 21 The purpose of AI

Stuart Russell, Computer Science, UC Berkeley

October 28 Research in NeuroAI should focus more on the findings and methods of psychology to advance our understanding of biological intelligence

Jeffrey Bowers, Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol

November 4 Joel Lehman, co-author of Why Greatness Cannot be Planned
November 11 Veterans Day holiday
November 18 François Chollet, co-founder Ndea and ARC Prize
November 25 Thanksgiving holiday
December 2 Jascha Sohl-Dickstein, Anthropic
December 9 Jitendra Malik, Computer Science, UC Berkeley