A new episode of the Computing Community Consortium‘s (CCC) podcast, Catalyzing Computing, is now available. This is part two of Khari Douglas’ interview with Natesh Ganesh, a recent PhD graduate from the University of Massachussetts at Amherst and a current Research Fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder through the NIST Professional Research Experience Program (PREP). Natesh’s research interest lie in the fields of AI, neuromorphic hardware, thermodynamics (Natesh was an organizer of the CCC’s 2019 Thermodynamic Computing workshop, read the Thermodynamic Computing workshop report here), and the emergence of consciousness. In this episode we talk about some of the key contributors to the space of artificial consciousness and discuss the ethics […]

A new episode of the Computing Community Consortium‘s (CCC) podcast, Catalyzing Computing, is now available. Khari Douglas interviews Natesh Ganesh, a recent PhD graduate from the University of Massachussetts at Amherst and a current Research Fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder through the NIST Professional Research Experience Program (PREP), whose research interest lie in the fields of AI, neuromorphic hardware, thermodynamics, and the emergence of consciousness. In this episode we discuss some, though certainly not all, of the leading theoretical frameworks for studying artificial consciousness. You can stream the episode in the embedded player below or find it on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Play | Blubrry | iHeartRadio | Youtube.   If you are interested in appearing in an episode […]

Yesterday, the President released his FY2021 budget request. The request includes a significant increase in nondefense AI R&D compared to the FY 2020 Budget and a commitment to double nondefense AI R&D by 2022. If enacted, it would bring spending for AI R&D and interdisciplinary research institutes at the National Science Foundation (NSF) to more than $830 million, which represents a more than 70 percent increase over the FY 2020 budget. This increase would map well to A 20-Year Community Roadmap for AI Research in the US, which was released by the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) and the computing research community in late 2019. The roadmap, led by Yolanda Gil […]

Vint Cerf, known as one of the “fathers of the internet” and a recipient of the 2004 ACM A.M. Turing Award, was a participating laureate at this year’s Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF). Cerf currently acts as a vice president and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. At HLF, I had an opportunity to sit down with Vint and interview him for the Computing Community Consortium’s (CCC) official podcast, “Catalyzing Computing,” which features interviews with researchers and policymakers about their background and experiences in the computing community. Prior to our interview he also participated in a press conference where he discussed some of the projects he is currently involved with, as well as other […]

A new episode of the Computing Community Consortium‘s (CCC) podcast, Catalyzing Computing, is now available. This is part 2 of Khari Douglas’ interview with Melanie Mitchell, a Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University, and External Professor and Member of the Science Board at the Santa Fe Institute. In this episode, Dr. Mitchell discusses genetic algorithms, complexity science, and the art of writing a book. You can stream the episode in the embedded player below or find it on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Play | Blubrry | iHeartRadio | Youtube.   If you are interested in appearing in an episode of the Catalyzing Computing podcast or want to contribute a guest post to the CCC blog, please complete this survey through Google […]

Shwetak Patel, the 2018 ACM Prize in Computing winner and Professor in Computer Science and Engineering and Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington, was a participating laureate at this year’s Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF). During his presentation at HLF, Dr. Patel discussed some of the innovate health applications he and his team have developed including an app that can monitor jaundice in babies called Bilicam. Typically, it can be hard to discern if a baby has severe jaundice since many babies skin has a yellowish hue naturally. Bilicam filters certain kinds of light out of the spectrum which allows that user to track the kinds of chemicals found in the babies skin. From there you can decide whether there […]