NYU Tandon School of Engineering Explores the State of Artificial Intelligence with New Seminar Series

NYU Tandon School of Engineering will launch a seminar series addressing the most important new research in the world of artificial intelligence (AI), featuring researchers who have made fundamental contributions to the emerging technology.

The first event will feature Yann LeCun, Facebook’s director of AI research and a member of the New York Universityfaculty. LeCun will inaugurate the series on Tuesday, February 20, 2018, from 10 to 11 am in Downtown Brooklyn, at NYU Tandon’s Pfizer Auditorium, 5 MetroTech Center. Registration is free and open to all. His address, “Obstacles to Deep Learning and AI,” will explore a new frontier: predictive models that capture the “common sense” exhibited by humans and animals, who often learn by observation and occasional action.

LeCun’s pioneering work in the application of neural networks to computer vision and other AI areas led to products and services deployed across most technology companies.  He is also known for research in image compression technology. At NYU, LeCun is the founding director of the Center for Data Science, a Silver Professor of Computer Science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the Tandon School of Engineering, and an associate faculty member of the Center for Neural Science. 

The seminar series, Modern Artificial Intelligence, is organized by Professor Anna Choromanska and hosted by NYU Tandon’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

“At NYU Tandon, our goal is to contribute to building a better, smarter, more-connected world, and AI is becoming increasingly vital in that pursuit,” said Dean Katepalli R. Sreenivasan. “Thanks to faculty members like Anna Choromanska, academic centers like the new AI Now, and entrepreneurial efforts like the AI NexusLab, we are becoming a global center of influence in the AI arena, and I look forward to the new seminar series as a cornerstone of our efforts.”

“Artificial intelligence is now impacting all facets of life, and with applications in such areas as defense, robotics, and autonomous vehicles, it is of vast interest to a large and diverse research community,” Choromanska said. “It is imperative that AI researchers interact and collaborate to move forward the development of new machine learning techniques and technologies, and this new seminar series holds the potential for being an important venue for them.”