New Meetup: Rethinking AI the MIT Way

From: Monica
Sent on: Sunday, January 3, 2010 3:07 AM
Announcing a new Meetup for Bay Area Artificial Intelligence Meetup Group!

What: Rethinking AI the MIT Way

When: January 10, 2010 12:00 PM

Where:
TechShop
120 Independence Dr.
Menlo Park, CA 94025
[masked]

MIT is launching a major project that has been described as a do-over of several decades of AI research. From a recent news article:

The new project, launched with an initial $5 million grant and a five-year timetable, is called the Mind Machine Project, or MMP, a loosely bound collaboration of about two dozen professors, researchers, students and postdocs. According to Neil Gershenfeld, one of the leaders of MMP and director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, one of the project’s goals is to create intelligent machines — “whatever that means.”

The project is “revisiting fundamental assumptions” in all of the areas encompassed by the field of AI, including the nature of the mind and of memory, and how intelligence can be manifested in physical form, says Gershenfeld, professor of media arts and sciences. “Essentially, we want to rewind to 30 years ago and revisit some ideas that had gotten frozen,” he says, adding that the new group hopes to correct “fundamental mistakes” made in AI research over the years.


Our homework for Sunday is to read the full article http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/ai-overview-1207.html

At the MeetUp we will read and discuss this proposal (well, news article) in detail, paragraph by paragraph. You in the MeetUp will be the main critics and/or supporters of the proposal. I will declare my personal bias upfront: It does not go far enough. We see attempts to move in the direction of Holistic Methods but they stop way before crossing the border. Embodiment (another one of our favorite topics at the MeetUp) also made it into the proposal. Note that there is more to read at the project site ttp://mmp.cba.mit.edu but we'll mainly discuss the news article in order to keep homework manageable.

As usual, don't be surprised if the discussion veers off from this topic into other areas of AI.

Learn more here:
http://www.ai-meetup.org/calendar/12204303/

Syntience Inc.

AI research company. Provides video equipment, time, and web space

Offer a perk for our members and get exposure.

Offer a perk →
Other nearby
Meetups
Why these groups?
x

The Meetup Groups shown here are topically similar to Bay Area Artificial Intelligence Meetup Group.

Groups are more likely to be displayed here if they:

  • have a Meetup scheduled
  • have a high rating
  • have a group photo
  • are "public" and not "private"
  • have shown they are likely to stick around (older than 30 days)
Find more Meetup Groups
near Menlo Park

Log in

  • Not registered with us yet?
or

Log in to Meetup with your Facebook account.

Sign up

or

Join this Meetup Group even quicker with your Facebook account.

By clicking the "Sign up using Facebook" or "Sign up" buttons above, you agree to Meetup's Terms of Service