Thursday Morning Lectures: Dr Utku Culha (Max Planck Inst.): Physical Intelligence on Soft Robots: order, functionality, and adaptation from the bottom-up

On ZOOM (Contact communication@scioi.de for link)

Abstract: We typically have a clear idea about the final design and functionality of a robot before we start building it. We apply this top-down design approach to a wide range of robotic systems and it allows our robots to be more optimized, autonomous, and programmable. However, if we want to design and actuate multiple

Distinguished Speaker Series

Jacqueline Gottlieb (hosted by Martin Rolfs): Curiosity and information demand: how we can study them and why we should care

On ZOOM (Contact us for Link)

Curiosity and information demand: how we can study them and why we should care A rapidly growing literature has recently emphasized the importance of our sense-making instincts, including complex investigative behaviors such as curiosity, for behavior and brain function. While much of this literature has focused on simple forms of decision making, we explored its

PI Lecture: Thorsten Pachur (SCIoI): Ecologically Rational Decision Making

On ZOOM (Contact us for Link)

Ecologically rational decision making How do we make inferences about a world full of uncertainty and given the mind’s natural bounds in computational abilities? I present a perspective according to which the decision maker is equipped with a repertoire of strategies, containing both simple heuristics and more complex strategies that are adaptive under different ecological

Thursday Morning Talk: Leon Sixt (Biorobotics Lab, FU Berlin): Opportunities and Challenges in Interpetable ML

On ZOOM (Contact us for Link)

Abstract: Deep neural networks underlie many state of the art solutions to hard problems in computer vision, natural language processing or playing Go. Yet, their power comes with a price. Deep networks transform inputs gradually into outputs, using many parameters and intermediary activations. Understanding what a network has learned, how inputs are mapped to outputs,

Work-in-progress Talk: Dimitri Coelho Mollo (SCIoI) & Alfredo Vernazzani (Ruhr Universität Bochum): Saving Representational Formats: A computational theory

On ZOOM (Contact us for Link)

Abstract Most cognitive sciences (including AI) appeal to representations in explaining (or trying to create) systems capable of cognition, and especially of complex, intelligent behaviour. In philosophy, considerable attention has been dedicated to the problem of explaining in scientifically-acceptable ways how representations come to represent what they do. In contrast, there has been much less

SCIoI Scientific Networking Days (internal event)

Internal Event

The SCIoI Scientific Networking Days event is an internal retreat meant to establish scientific connections among the people and the projects in SCIoI. Through this event, we want to emphasize the importance of establishing scientific connections among SCIoI researchers and promote in-depth scientific discussions and exchanges. During the retreat, the SCIoI executive board will evaluate

Thursday Morning Talk with Rico Jonschkowski (Google Brain): Perception in Motion

On ZOOM (Contact us for Link)

Title: Perception in Motion Abstract: This is a talk on perception in two parts. Part one exemplifies the "movement" of the field of learning-based robot perception. Here, I will give one example for increasing structural assumptions and one for decreasing them based on our work on differentiable mapping and differentiable resampling. Part two takes the

Thursday morning talk with Benjamin Wild: Social networks through time – Individuality in a colony of honey bees

On ZOOM (Contact us for Link)

ABSTRACT: In many social systems, an individual’s role is reflected by its interactions with other members of the group. In many model organisms, and particularly in social insects, the patterns of actions and interactions among individuals are not static but constantly evolving over time. This can be due to the emergence or demise of certain

Distinguished Speaker Series

Guy Theraulaz, (CNRS, Toulouse, France. Host: Pawel Romanczuk): Ethological analysis and computational modeling of social interactions in schooling fish

Abstract: Swarms of insects, schools of fish and flocks of birds display an impressive variety of collective movement patterns that emerge from interactions among group members. These puzzling phenomena raise a variety of questions about the interaction rules that govern the coordination of individuals’ motion and the emergence of large-scale patterns. While numerous models have

Distinguished Speaker Series

Giovanni Pezzulo, ISTC-CNR Rome (Host: Verena Hafner): Human sensorimotor communication during human joint action: experimental and computational perspectives

Giovanni Pezzulo is a researcher at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council in Rome, Italy. His research centers on the neuronal and computational mechanisms of predictive processing, goal-directed behaviour, and the sensorimotor foundations of higher cognition. Human sensorimotor communication during human joint action: experimental and computational perspectives During online social interactions,

For the Public

Berlin Science Week Talk: Alex Kacelnik, Are WE more like we think THEY are, or are THEY more like we think WE are?

As part of the “6 o’clock with SCIoI” talk series within the Berlin Science Week 2020, Prof. Alex Kacelnik will take us on a fascinating journey through the understanding of intelligence in humans, animals and robots. Please visit the Berlin Science Week website to access the event. https://falling-walls.com/event/are-we-more-like-we-think-they-are-or-are-they-more-like-we-think-we-are/