The National Science Foundation (NSF), in partnership with the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Transportation (DoT), and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) just announced a new solicitation, titled National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Institutes: Accelerating Research, Transforming Society, and Growing the American Workforce, with the goal to “significantly advance research in AI and accelerate the development of transformational, AI-powered innovation by allowing researchers to focus on larger-scale, longer-term research.” The National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes program anticipates approximately $120 million in grants next year to fund eight planning grants and up to six research institutes in order to advance AI […]

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 […]

The following blog was written by Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Vice-Chair Liz Bradley from University of Colorado Boulder and CCC Chair Mark D. Hill from the University of Wisconsin Madison. Times in Artificial Intelligence are or should be changing. See Bob Dylan’s 1964 lyrics below.  Last week the New York Times published an article titled “A.I. Researchers See Danger of Haves and Have-Nots.” Modern AI research, which demands enormous computational resources, large data sets, and significant human expertise, is becoming increasingly difficult for anyone outside the large tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook. This includes university labs—which, as the article points out, have traditionally been a wellspring of […]

A new episode of the Computing Community Consortium‘s (CCC) podcast, Catalyzing Computing, is now available. In this episode, Khari Douglas interviews 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. Dr. Mitchell discusses moving from physics to computer science, the development of Copycat, a computer program that makes analogies, and common AI fallacies. 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 […]

There’s less than two weeks left to apply for the 2020-2021 cohort of AAAS Leshner Leadership Fellows! This program convenes mid-career scientists who demonstrate leadership in their research careers and in promoting meaningful dialogue between science and society. Each year, 15 Leshner Fellows from disciplines at the nexus of important science-society issues convene for a week of public engagement and science communication training and public engagement plan development in Washington, DC, then continue their activities while at their home institutions during the fellowship year. The 2020-2021 cohort will be comprised of active researchers in the field of artificial intelligence, new and emerging technologies that seek to replicate, mimic or augment human […]

In Tuesday’s opening lecture at the Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF), Joseph Sifakis, 2007 Turing Award winner, discussed whether we can trust autonomous systems and considered the interplay between the trustworthiness of the system – the system’s ability to behave as expected despite mishaps – and the criticality of the task – the severity of the impact an error will have on the fulfillment of a task. Sifakis defined autonomy as the combination of five complementary functions – perception, reflection, goal management, planning, and self-awareness/adaption. The better a given system can manage these functions the higher the level of autonomy we say that it has, from 0 (no automation) to 5 (full automation, no […]