Across the broad spectrum of LinkedIn notifications and unsolicited email, I found out about Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science’s series of virtual events related to generative AI.
May 19 was the date for the icebreaker events with a keynote talk by Dr. Tom Mitchell, the founding professor of CMU’s Machine Learning department which was the first Machine Learning department in the world. Somehow I missed it. Perhaps they will post a recording.
On May 26 from 11am to 1pm, Roni Rosenfeld, CMU’s head of the Machine Learning Department, will provide a Keynote Talk and, afterwards, host a “Ask Me Anything (AMA) Panel.” Dr. Rosenfeld’s current research interests are in tracking and forecasting epidemics. He has published more than 150 scientific articles and papers.
On June 2, from 11am to 12:30pm, through a panel discussion about Generative AI in Education and the Future of Work, researchers and practitioners in the learning sciences and technology, economics, and administration of education will talk about new challenges and opportunities resulting from the rise of large language models.
On June 9, from 11am to 12:30pm, the department will host a panel discussion titled Generative AI in Medicine and Public Health. Researchers and practitioners from the fields of computational biology, medical informatics, and natural language processing will participate on the panel.
On June 10, from 11am to 2pm, Dr. Daphne Ippolito will lead a tutorial titled Building Blocks of Generative AI Systems and Hands-on Experience. The first half of the tutorial reviews the terminology in technical discussions of LLMs and how they turn a prompt into generated text or images. The second half of the tutorial completes a guided exercise to build a basic application. The tutorial assumes competency in Python and access to a Python development environment.
On June 16, from 11am to 12:30pm, the department will host a Panel discussion titled Finance and Economics. Leaders from industry and academics will discuss broad challenges related to process optimization, as well as quantitative reasoning, extrapolation, and multimodal document processing in particular.
On June 18, from 11am to 2pm, Dr. Ippolito leads the same tutorial session as she led on June 10th titled Building Blocks of Generative AI Systems and Hands-on Experience.
On June 23, from 11am to 12:30, an Invited Talk is scheduled. The speaker is To Be Announced.
On June 30, from 11am to 12:30pm, Dr. Manuela Veloso will speak about AI in Finance: Examples and Discussion. Dr. Veloso is head of J.P. Morgan Chase AI Research and a Professor Emerita at Carnegie Mellon.
On July 14, from 11am to 12pm, Jill Fain Lehman will speak on the topic Separating Truth and (Speculative) Fiction. She has worked for more than 40 years in the area of natural language processing, machine learning, cognitive architecture, and human-computer interaction. She has split her time between academia at CMU and industry (including Rand Corporation, Carnegie Speech, Carnegie Learning and Disney Research).
On July 18, from 11am to 2pm, Dr. Ippolito leads the same tutorial session as she led on June 10th and June 18th titled Building Blocks of Generative AI Systems and Hands-On Experience.
On July 21 through July 23, the department will host a Hackathon Event titled Education and the Future of Work. Participants with some technical expertise who would like to engage in an extensive hands-on group project in one of CMU’s three impact areas can join one of three hackathon experiences. These events will culminate in an open demonstration of hackathon projects with prizes awarded to the winning teams.
On July 22, from 12pm to 1pm, each of the hackathon events will feature a spotlight session where ongoing CMU projects will present their work in a poster/demo/firehose talk session.
On July 28 through July 30, the department will host a Hackathon Event titled Medicine and Public Health. Participants with some technical expertise who would like to engage in an extensive hands-on group project in one of CMU’s three impact areas can join one of three hackathon experiences. These events will culminate in an open demonstration of hackathon projects with prizes awarded to the winning teams.
On July 29, from 12pm to 1pm, each of the hackathon events will feature a spotlight session where ongoing CMU projects will present their work in a poster/demo/firehose talk session.
On August 4 through 6, the department will host a hackathon event titled Finance and Economics. Participants with some technical expertise who would like to engage in an extensive hands-on group project in one of CMU’s three impact areas can join one of three hackathon experiences. These events will culminate in an open demonstration of hackathon projects with prizes awarded to the winning teams.
On August 5, from 11am to 1pm, each of the hackathon events will feature a spotlight session where ongoing CMU projects will present their work in a poster/demo/firehose talk session.
On August 11 at 11am, a closing ceremony will offer the opportunity for the winning project teams in each of the three hackathon sessions to present their award-winning work to the general public. Audiences will have the chance to ask questions and engage in a broader discussion about the future of generative AI during this facilitated event.
Carnegie Mellon is well-known for its STEM programs, and these events hosted by its Computer Science department have a scientific bent, particularly the hackathons. For an individual affiliated with an academic institution who is somewhat facile with generative AI, these might be interesting sessions. I think it’s important to remember, particularly for the panel on education, that CMU’s computer science department developed Carnegie Learning, a K-12 provider of curriculum and learning tools, which was spun out of CMU into an independent company. I recall that Carnegie Learning offered one of the first online math courses built with adaptive learning tools.
As I mentioned earlier, I’m not sure if these webinars will be too technical in nature for me or some of my colleagues. However, the CMU faculty has world-class AI credentials and the webinars are free to anyone who registers. My plan is to at least attend the next two.
photo credit: monticellllo – stock.adobe.com
