January 2024 - Machine-learning-nederland

CWI Machine Learning seminar: Reuben Adams Fri 16 Feb, 11:00, L017
by Wouter Koolen-Wijkstra 31 Jan '24

31 Jan '24

Dear all, It is my pleasure to announce the following CWI Machine Learning seminar, now with the correct speaker. Speaker: Reuben Adams (UCL) Title: Could we lose control of AI? Exploring the arguments of an old and reignited debate Date: Friday 16 February, 11:00 Location: CWI L017 Please find the abstract below. Hope to see you then. Best wishes, Wouter Details: https://portals.project.cwi.nl/ml-reading-group/events/could-we-lose-contro… ============ Could we lose control of AI? Exploring the arguments of an old and reignited debate Reuben Adams (UCL) Since the beginning of AI, some researchers have warned that we could lose control of sufficiently advanced AI systems. In a 1951 lecture, Alan Turing proposed that “once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers” concluding that “[a]t some stage therefore we should have to expect the machines to take control.” The recent acceleration of AI progress has thrust this question forward, revealing enormous disagreements in the field. I will outline the main arguments on both sides, taking the heat out of the debate by showing where the interesting cruxes lie. How much does the argument for losing control depend on rapid jumps in AI capabilities (spoiler: a bit), machines becoming sentient (spoiler: not at all), the orthogonality of intelligence and values, or believing in an abstract notion of “general intelligence”? Can we RLHF our values into AIs? Will AIs be power-seeking by default? What would it take for AIs to become deceptive, and for us to fail to realise that? I will outline the state of the debate on these questions, concluding with my own views.

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CWI Machine Learning seminar: Reuben Adams Fri 16 Feb, 11:00, L017
by Wouter Koolen-Wijkstra 31 Jan '24

31 Jan '24

Dear all, It is my pleasure to announce the following CWI Machine Learning seminar. Speaker: Rémi Bardenet (CNRS & CRIStAL, Univ. Lille) Title: Could we lose control of AI? Exploring the arguments of an old and reignited debate Date: Friday 16 February, 11:00 Location: CWI L017 Please find the abstract below. Hope to see you then. Best wishes, Wouter Details: https://portals.project.cwi.nl/ml-reading-group/events/could-we-lose-contro… ============ Could we lose control of AI? Exploring the arguments of an old and reignited debate Reuben Adams (UCL) Since the beginning of AI, some researchers have warned that we could lose control of sufficiently advanced AI systems. In a 1951 lecture, Alan Turing proposed that “once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers” concluding that “[a]t some stage therefore we should have to expect the machines to take control.” The recent acceleration of AI progress has thrust this question forward, revealing enormous disagreements in the field. I will outline the main arguments on both sides, taking the heat out of the debate by showing where the interesting cruxes lie. How much does the argument for losing control depend on rapid jumps in AI capabilities (spoiler: a bit), machines becoming sentient (spoiler: not at all), the orthogonality of intelligence and values, or believing in an abstract notion of “general intelligence”? Can we RLHF our values into AIs? Will AIs be power-seeking by default? What would it take for AIs to become deceptive, and for us to fail to realise that? I will outline the state of the debate on these questions, concluding with my own views.

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Fwd: Request to forward: ITALT symposium (joint between ITA and ALT), Saturday, Feb 24, San Diego
by Tim van Erven 29 Jan '24

29 Jan '24

Dear all, Anyone going to the ALT conference this year might also be interested in the joint symposium between ALT and ITA. Vidya Muthukumar asked me to forward the announcement below. Best, Tim -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Announcement: ITALT symposium (joint between ITA and ALT), Saturday, Feb 24, San Diego* Vidya Muthukumar, together with Alon Orlitsky, Daniel Hsu and Claire Vernade, is chairing a *1-day symposium between the Information Theory and Applications (ITA) workshop <https://ita.ucsd.edu/workshop/> and the Algorithmic Learning Theory (ALT) conference <http://algorithmiclearningtheory.org/alt2024/>*, which we call "ITALT". The symposium will be held on *Saturday, Feb 24, at the Bahia Resort in San Diego *(same location as ITA). This symposium is interdisciplinary and will bring members of the information theory and learning theory communities together. The symposium features invited *tutorials on optimal control/reinforcement learning and large language models *by *Ankur Moitra and Yuanzhi Li*, an *open problems session* and an *all-women professional development panel and mentorship roundtables* organized by Women in Machine Learning-Theory <https://www.wiml-t.org/> and the Learning Theory Alliance <https://let-all.com/>. Please see the schedule on our symposium website <http://algorithmiclearningtheory.org/alt2024/ita-alt-italt/> for more details (exact times are subject to minor change). We will have a registration link for the symposium available early next week and will write back then, but wanted to announce right away so that you have the information about this symposium on your calendars and can plan travel appropriately if you're interested in attending. We also encourage you to register for at least one of ITA or ALT if you have not already! Best, Vidya Muthukumar, Alon Orlitsky, Daniel Hsu, Claire Vernade

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Talk by Herbert Jaeger (UniGroningen) 25 Jan 11-12 @ CWI, Amsterdam
by Aditya Gilra 24 Jan '24

24 Jan '24

Dear all, (please feel free to forward) We have a talk by Prof Herbert Jaeger (https://www.ai.rug.nl/minds/herbert/) from the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen: Date: 25 Jan 2024 Time: 11 AM to 12 PM Location: L016, CWI, Amsterdam Title: "It has taken 2350 years to understand symbolic-logical computing. Next step: understanding brains and stuff" Abstract: For digital computing we possess a formal theory foundation that deeply roots in Western philosophical history, is mathematically transparent, has been worked out and stabilized and codified into a standart textbook format, and obviously has changed the world through digital computers. For information processing in neuromorphic microchips, or in other new and to-be-found hardware substrates based on unconventional physical effects, or in biological brains or other natural systems, we do not have anything like a unifying formal theory foundation. But we need it, and it should not only be academically acceptable but really practically useful. In my talk I will draw a quick overall picture of this situation, and then present my own approach toward formulating such a general formal theory for information processing in non-digital, non-symbolic dynamical systems. Best, Aditya.

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Talk by Herbert Jaeger (UniGroningen) 25 Jan 11-12 @ CWI, Amsterdam
by Gao.Peng＠cwi.nl 15 Jan '24

15 Jan '24

The following is a new meeting request: Subject: [ml_ned] Talk by Herbert Jaeger (UniGroningen) 25 Jan 11-12 @ CWI, Amsterdam Organizer: "Gao Peng" <Gao.Peng(a)cwi.nl> Time: Thursday, 25 January 2024 11:00 AM to 11:30 AM Location: 016 Invitees: machine-learning-nederland(a)list.uva.nl; Aditya.Gilra(a)cwi.nl; machine-learning-nederland(a)list.uva.nl *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* From: Aditya <machine-learning-nederland(a)list.uva.nl> To: ml_ned <machine-learning-nederland(a)list.uva.nl> Date: Monday, 15 January 2024 12:06 PM CET Subject: [ml_ned] Talk by Herbert Jaeger (UniGroningen) 25 Jan 11-12 @ CWI, Amsterdam Dear all, (please feel free to forward) We have a talk by Prof Herbert Jaeger (https://www.ai.rug.nl/minds/herbert/) from the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen: Date: 25 Jan 2024 Time: 11 AM to 12 PM Location: L016, CWI, Amsterdam Title: "It has taken 2350 years to understand symbolic-logical computing. Next step: understanding brains and stuff" Abstract: For digital computing we possess a formal theory foundation that deeply roots in Western philosophical history, is mathematically transparent, has been worked out and stabilized and codified into a standart textbook format, and obviously has changed the world through digital computers. For information processing in neuromorphic microchips, or in other new and to-be-found hardware substrates based on unconventional physical effects, or in biological brains or other natural systems, we do not have anything like a unifying formal theory foundation. But we need it, and it should not only be academically acceptable but really practically useful. In my talk I will draw a quick overall picture of this situation, and then present my own approach toward formulating such a general formal theory for information processing in non-digital, non-symbolic dynamical systems. Best, Aditya. _______________________________________________ Machine-learning-nederland mailing list Machine-learning-nederland(a)list.uva.nl https://list.uva.nl/mailman/listinfo/machine-learning-nederland

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Call for abstracts for “Fundamental Sciences in AI” at ICT.OPEN2024
by Dirksen, S. (Sjoerd) 15 Jan '24

15 Jan '24

Dear all, Each year, the AI and Mathematics network (AIM<https://aimath.nl/>) organizes a track at the conference ICT.OPEN<https://ictopen.nl/>. The next edition will take place on April 10 and 11, 2024, in the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht. The goal of the track is to bring together mathematicians and computer scientists who are based in the Netherlands and are working on the foundations of AI. A detailed track description can be found here<https://ictopen.nl/track-fundamental-sciences-in-ai>. We would like to invite you to submit an abstract to present your work within the track. The details of the call can be found here<https://ictopen.nl/call-for-abstracts-nwo-ictopen2024>. The submission deadline is 16 January 2024. Best wishes, Sjoerd Dirksen, Tim van Erven, Silke Glas, Mihaela Mitici

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Plagiarized publication in an MDPI journal
by Michael Biehl 08 Jan '24

08 Jan '24

Dear All. It is my pleasure to announce that a fraudulent and blatantly plagiarized publication from July 2023, (allegedly) about the training of layered neural networks in time-dependent envrionments, has been retracted by the Editorial Office of *MDPI Applied Sciences*, at last. The retraction process took very long and communication was quite unpleasant. *Please see * *https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/14/2/476* <https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/14/2/476> *for details and links to the plagiarized original pieces of work. * Note that the term "overlap" in the retraction notice is way too polite in view of the brazen "cut-and-paste" approach of the "authors". They literally copy/pasted essentially all figures and equations from other sources. The text consists of non-sensical gibberish and contains no original results whatsoever. Four referees apparently failed to note the gobbledygook and recognize the plagiarism. Best wishes, Michael Biehl -- --------------------------------------------------- Prof. Dr. Michael Biehl Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics, Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence P.O. Box 407, 9700 AK Groningen, NL https://www.cs.rug.nl/~biehl m.biehl(a)rug.nl

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BeNeRL Reinforcement Learning Seminar: Chris Lu (Jan 11)
by Yang, Z. (Zhao) 08 Jan '24

08 Jan '24

Dear colleagues, Our next BeNeRL Reinforcement Learning Seminar (Jan 11) is coming: Speaker: Chris Lu (https://chrislu.page<https://chrislu.page/>), PhD student at the University of Oxford. Title: Accelerating RL research with PureJaxRL Date: January 11, 16.00-17.00 (CET) Please find full details about the talk below this email and on the website of the seminar series: https://www.benerl.org/seminar-series The goal of the online BeNeRL seminar series is to invite RL researchers (mostly advanced PhD or early postgraduate) to share their work. In addition, we invite the speakers to briefly share their experience with large-scale deep RL experiments, and their style/approach to get these to work. We would be very glad if you forward this invitation within your group and to other colleagues that would be interested (also outside the BeNeRL region). Hope to see you on January 11! Kind regards, Zhao Yang & Thomas Moerland Leiden University —————————————————————— Upcoming talk: Date: January 11, 16.00-17.00 (CET) Speaker: Chris Lu (https://chrislu.page<https://chrislu.page/>) Title: Accelerating RL research with PureJaxRL Zoom: https://universiteitleiden.zoom.us/j/65411016557?pwd=MzlqcVhzVzUyZlJKTEE0Nk… Abstract: Recent advancements in JAX have enabled researchers to train RL agents entirely on the accelerator end-to-end, resulting in runtime speedups of over 4000x. Such speedups have the potential to fundamentally change the way we do RL, allowing researchers to efficiently run hundreds of seeds simultaneously, perform rapid hyperparameter tuning, and perform long-horizon meta-evolution for RL. Furthermore, this vastly lowers the computational barrier of entry to Deep RL research, allowing academic labs to perform research using trillions of frames (closing the gap with industry research labs) and enabling independent researchers to get orders of magnitude more mileage out of a single GPU. Bio: Chris Lu is a third-year DPhil student at the University of Oxford, where he is advised by Professor Jakob Foerster at FLAIR. His work focuses on applying evolution-inspired techniques to meta-learning and multi-agent reinforcement learning. In the summer of 2022 he interned at DeepMind as a research scientist. Previously, he worked as a researcher at Covariant.ai.

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Fwd: PhD position on aligning learning and reasoning at the University of Groningen
by Tim van Erven 04 Jan '24

04 Jan '24

Forwarding on behalf of Bart Verheij, who has multiple interesting PhD positions available in Groningen: ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: *Bart Verheij* <bart.verheij(a)rug.nl> Date: Tue, Jan 2, 2024 at 11:31 AM Subject: PhD position on aligning learning and reasoning at the University of Groningen To: Are you interested in formal AI methods for the alignment of learning and reasoning? Then we have a PhD position in Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics <https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/work-with-us/job-opportunities/?details=00347-0…> for you! The context is the implementation and design of cognitive devices. We also have a PhD position in Physics and Statistics <https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/work-with-us/job-opportunities/?details=00347-0…> on the statistical analysis of innovative hardware. We (Marco Grzegorczyk, Beatriz Noheda, Bart Verheij) are looking for people with a solid background in AI, mathematics and/or physics. Please apply by January 15, 2024. We look forward to your applications!

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Machine-learning-nederland January 2024