On Route to Artificial General Intelligence
10:00-10:25 am, October 3
We live in an era characterized by convergence of three complementary scientific disciplines that together offer the potential to yield a breakthrough in Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Novel computational means that are both scalable and cost-efficient facilitate the infrastructure over which meaningful AGI technology can be realized. This includes modern reconfigurable computing devices as well as graphics processing units. Advances in the field of machine learning, particularly those made over the past two decades, offer profound insight into the paradigms governing decision making under uncertainty in the mammal brain. Lastly, deep machine learning models, as biologically-inspired cognitive architectures, deliver an unprecedented capacity to represent real-world information in a manner that facilitates robust state inference – a critical component in nearly all machine learning frameworks. I argue that the pieces of the puzzle are readily available, signifying a bright future for AGI progress over the next several years.
Biographies: Itamar Arel
Itamar Arel is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Director of the Machine Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Tennessee. He is a co-founder of the Artificial General Intelligence Roadmap initiative, which aims to play a vital role in defining AGI benchmarking and coherence in research focus. He also serves as a program chair of the Third Artificial General Intelligence conference. During 2000-2003 he was with TeraCross, Inc., a fabless semiconductor company developing Terabit/sec switch fabric integrated circuits, where he held several key positions including chief scientist. His research focus is on high-performance machine learning architectures and algorithms, with emphasis on deep learning architectures, reinforcement learning and decision making under uncertainty. Dr. Arel is a recipient of the US Department of Energy Early Career Principal Investigator (CAREER) award in 2004. He holds a B.S., M.S and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering and an M.B.A. degree, all from Ben-Gurion University in Israel.
