• AI Beyond STEM: digital skills to unleash the power of data science and AI for all

    Are you curious about the digital skills required to unlock the potential of data science and artificial intelligence in non-science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields? Join us for “AI Beyond STEM: digital skills to unleash the power of data science and AI for all” hosted by The Alan Turing Institute….

  • Mememormee – A Dance & AI Performance (4/27/23)

    Mememormee – A Dance & AI Performance (4/27/23)

    April 27th, 7:00 PMThe Powerhouse Abstract: A dance-theater piece situated at the cutting edge of machine learning and art, mememormee explores the prismatic effects of the recent surge of AI-enabled artmaking that will soon confront dancers, choreographers, or anyone with a moving body. This performance uses choreography derived from one-of-a-kind AI models trained exclusively on the movements of…

  • AI and War: Where are we headed? (4/13/23)

    AI and War: Where are we headed? (4/13/23)

    This panel will address such questions as: How is AI being applied to warfare now, and how might it be applied in the future? How will this affect the conduct of war and its escalatory potential? What are the legal and ethical questions raised by the fielding of autonomous weapons systems? What steps are being…

  • Artificial intelligence is Social Science: Natural language Processing From and For Social Analysis (4/11/23)

    Artificial intelligence is Social Science: Natural language Processing From and For Social Analysis (4/11/23)

    April 11th, 4:30 PMCHI Think Tank, Frost Library Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) are coming to prominence with startling new advances, but their functioning and potential is poorly understood, with incredibly weak scientific grounding of every cool recent result you’ve heard of. Why? Considering the history of AI research, its major approaches…

  • ChatGPT and Education: Hype Versus Reality (3/24/2023 12 Noon)

    ChatGPT and Education: Hype Versus Reality (3/24/2023 12 Noon)

    In a few short months, many of us have heard of or tried ChatGPT, the large language model (LLM) that generates coherent texts on demand in a broadly accessible chat interface. Many opinions have been voiced about ChatGPT and other natural language intelligence systems, and crucially, how they may affect education and teaching in practice.…

  • Mind the Bot? How Close are Chatbots to Having Minds (Like Ours)? (3/22/23)

    Mind the Bot? How Close are Chatbots to Having Minds (Like Ours)? (3/22/23)

    The remarkable performances of chatbots like ChatGPT have arguably made the classic Turing Test for machine intelligence obsolete; ChatGPT’s ability to participate in convincing human-like conversations is uncanny. But are we any closer to artificial general intelligence? To AIs with minds ? In this talk, I will explore some of the ways that generative language models like…

  • Making Technology Talk: Conversation And/As Artificial Intelligence

    Making Technology Talk: Conversation And/As Artificial Intelligence

    March 2, 2023 Abstract: As an early metric for what he called “machine intelligence,” Alan Turing proposed an “imitation game.” In this game, a human would converse via a text-only interface with two partners–one human and one machine–then would guess which one was which. Turing thus reduced the question of machine intelligence to the question of…

  • ChatGPT in Education: Boon, Bane, and Beyond

    On February 20th 2023 at 6pm in the CHI Think Tank (Frost Library) Professors Chris Grobe, Lee Spector, and Kristina Reardon engaged in a discussion exploring the complex web of variables that ChatGPT touches upon, including ethics, justice, motivation, and innovation as well as strategies for navigating generative AI technology in the classroom. An article…

  • AI Tools & Mentorship Program

    AI Tools & Mentorship Program

    Hi all, We will be having our Tools showcase and Mentorship Program Wednesday (12/7) from 6-7 pm in Frost Library. Please feel free to come by to explore AI tools and talk about using AI with us!…

  • Discussing DALL-E: The Impact of AI on Art

    Discussing DALL-E: The Impact of AI on Art

    DALL-E is an AI system that can create realistic images and art when given a prompt. For example, this poster was generated when DALL-E was asked to produce an ‘oil painting of a sad robot who is forced to create art for humans’. The AILA initiative, led by Professor Lee Spector, has created Amherst College’s…

  • At UMass: Laure Thompson on “Computational Humanities & Human-Centered Machine Learning”

    Laure Thompson, who gave an AILA talk in 2021 1, is giving a Computational Social Science Institute talk on “Computational Humanities & Human-Centered Machine Learning” in the Computer Science Building at UMass on Friday, Nov. 4, 12-1:30pm, with lunch provided….

  • AI Tools Showcase and Hiring Info

    AI Tools Showcase and Hiring Info

    May 12, 2022 Artificial Intelligence in the Liberal Arts (AILA) will exhibit AI tools, including some that can be used by anyone, regardless of experience. AILA job openings for the fall will also be discussed. Tools to be presented include the Amherst cluster computer, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Rekognition, Google Vision, and Artbreeder. Food from Black…

  • Dancing with Myself: Interdisciplinary Machine Learning Methods for Choreography (feat. Mariel Pettee)

    Dancing with Myself: Interdisciplinary Machine Learning Methods for Choreography (feat. Mariel Pettee)

    A recording of the event can be found here: Kaltura, Youtube DATE & TIME: Monday, April 18, 5:00 – 6:00 PMLOCATION: Paino Lecture Hall In these years marked by physical distance, Dr. Pettee’s primary dance partner has been a machine learning (ML) model. Inspired by her applications of ML in the domain of high-energy particle physics during her PhD,…

  • Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans (Feat. Melanie Mitchell)

    Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans (Feat. Melanie Mitchell)

    Artificial intelligence has been described as “the new electricity”, poised to revolutionize human life and benefit society as much or more than electricity did 100 years ago. AI has also been described as “our biggest existential threat”, a technology that could “spell the end of the human race”. Should we welcome intelligent machines or fear…

  • Timnit Gebru UMass event via Zoom, March 22, 2022

    This is a UMass event but I think that it will interest many at Amherst College as well, and relate to several AILA themes: Timnit Gebru UMass event 4. It will be on Zoom, but registration is required (via the link above). A video recording of the event is available here….

  • Machine Learning In Biomedical Research (feat. Dr. Jason Moore)

    Machine Learning In Biomedical Research (feat. Dr. Jason Moore)

    December 6, 2021 A recording of this talk can be found here. This TASTE (Talk About Science and Technology Experience) Seminar will feature Dr. Jason Moore, founding Chair of the Department of Computational Biomedicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He will be joining us for this exciting virtual event examining the expanding opportunities for the use of…

  • Making Robots Good People

    Making Robots Good People

    Robots and AIs are increasingly involved in every facet of human life: transportation, warfare, criminal justice, medicine and, of course, social media and communication. And while in some cases they are promised to be better: fairer, more data driven, less prone to emotion, they often mirror back to us our own moral blindspots and biases.…

  • Adversarial Intelligence (Feat: Una-May O’Reilly)

    Adversarial Intelligence (Feat: Una-May O’Reilly)

    What do taxation, cyber networks, software and humans have in common? They each are vulnerable to adversarial conflicts. Taxation faces non-compliance, networks face attacks, software faces malware, and humans – among many vulnerabilities, are susceptible to disinformation. In this talk Dr. O’Reilly will describe work on Artificial Adversarial Intelligence (AAI), employing machine learning and evolutionary…

  • AI and the Future of Your Mind (feat. Dr. Susan Schneider)

    AI and the Future of Your Mind (feat. Dr. Susan Schneider)

    Humans may not be Earth’s most intelligent species for much longer: the world chess, Go, and Jeopardy! champions are now all AIs. Given the rapid pace of progress in AI, many predict that AI could advance to human-level intelligence within the next several decades. From there, it could quickly outpace human intelligence. What do these…

  • A Symbiotic Future For Machine Learning and the Humanities (feat. Laure Thompson)

    A Symbiotic Future For Machine Learning and the Humanities (feat. Laure Thompson)

    Computational methods can help the humanities by making massive cultural heritage collections more explorable and analyzable. Machine learning and statistical methods provide an opportunity to view collections from alien, defamiliarized perspectives that can call into question the boundaries between established categories. But the converse is also true: the humanities have much to offer machine learning.…

  • Towards Building Equitable Language Technologies (feat. Su Lin Blodgett)

    Towards Building Equitable Language Technologies (feat. Su Lin Blodgett)

    Language technologies are now ubiquitous. Yet the benefits of these technologies do not accrue evenly to all people, and they can be harmful; language technologies reproduce stereotypes, prevent speakers of “non-standard” language varieties from participating fully in public discourse, and reinscribe historical patterns of linguistic stigmatization and discrimination. In this talk, I will take a…