Friday April 5. – noon-1 p.m.

Location: Bliss 190

Marco Alvarez, Associate Professor, Computer Science

“Transforming Research and Higher Education with Generative AI and Foundation Models”

This talk delves into the transformative potential of generative AI and foundation models in both scientific research and higher education. Foundation models represent a seismic shift in AI capabilities, empowering researchers to analyze data, generate hypotheses, and uncover knowledge with unprecedented efficiency. Trained on vast amounts of unlabeled data, foundation models can serve as a powerful starting point for tackling a wide range of language and vision problems. By harnessing the power of these models, researchers can unlock new frontiers in interdisciplinary collaboration, innovation, and breakthrough discoveries. Moreover, this talk explores how generative AI is reshaping undergraduate and graduate education, presenting significant opportunities and challenges. Universities must quickly adapt to prepare students to work alongside intelligent machines and drive responsible AI innovation.

Friday March 29 – 2-3 p.m.

Location: Bliss 190

Sarah Brown, Assistant Professor, Computer Science

Title: How to anticipate risks in AI-enhanced research

ML-powered AI is increasingly appearing in all areas of research. However, ML (machine learning) is still in many ways a research output, more of a prototype than a polished, reliable, product. Even commercially released systems, because they are software, can be released without the same rigorous testing that commercially available research equipment has been traditionally be subject to. In this talk, I will draw connections between the ML research process and potential risks in applied ML and use of commercial AI in research.