IAAI-10 Invited Talks
Robert S. Engelmore Memorial Award Lecture
Cancer: A Computational Disease that AI Can Cure
Jay M. Tenenbaum (CollabRx Inc.)
Cancer results from finite genomic mutations that biotechnology can easily list, and that we can mostly understand and reason about in terms of the underlying biochemistry. Tragically, the scientific and medical communities are searching for cures using an incredibly inefficient non-adaptive strategy, where the costs of experiments are measured in lives, as well as money, and where we capture only a small portion of the genomics and outcomes data, i.e., in clinical trials. Inspired by my career experiences as an AI researcher, Internet entrepreneur and cancer survivor, I am attempting to redress this situation through Cancer Commons, a "rapid learning" community of patients, physicians and researchers. Our goal is to cure cancer by collecting the genomic and response data from thousands of adaptively-planned individual treatment experiments, integrating the resulting sparse fragments of evidence to infer the true causal mechanisms of tumors and drugs, and generalizing the resulting knowledge so that it can be applied to new cases. Each patient is treated in accord with the best available knowledge, and that knowledge is continually updated to benefit the next patient. Hopefully, this adaptive approach will efficiently climb the hill to find cures for cancer, one patient at a time.
Jay M. Tenenbaum was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University in the 1960s. He spent the 1970s doing artificial intelligence research at SRI, the 1980s managing computer science research for Schlumberger, and the 1990s pioneering Internet commerce. He's currently focused on using the AI and the web to transform medicine.
IAAI-10 Invited Talk
A New Paradigm of Geriatric Care Empowered by Applied AI
Majd Alwan (Center for Aging Services Technologies)
Advances in sensor, communication, artificial intelligence technologies and data processing, coupled the increasing processing power, is causing a shift in the way we care for the elderly. This paper presents a new paradigm for geriatric care based on monitoring and assisting older adults in their own living settings. AI techniques could be applied to mine health and activity data collected in the home to detect indicators of early disease onset, deterioration or improvement, inform providers and allow the delivery of care services, including assistance and support. Examples of monitoring and assistive systems that apply AI techniques are discussed. The approach has significant value to older adults as well as caregivers, and allows care providers to extend services into the community.
Majd Alwan is the director of the Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST). He is responsible for creating and leading a network of technology companies, providers and research institutions focused on technology solutions for an aging society. Prior to joining CAST, Majd served as an assistant professor and the director of the robotics and eldercare technologies program at the University of Virginia's Medical Automation Research Center. His research interests included passive functional and health assessment, biomedical instrumentation, as well as eldercare and assistive technologies.
Alwan received his Ph.D. in intelligent robotics from Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of London, a Master's of Science degree in control engineering with distinction from Bradford University and a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Damascus University. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE.
IAAI-10 Invited Talk
Species of Mind
Vernor Vinge (San Diego State University)
More than any other animal, we humans invent ways to outsource cognitive function. We've been doing this for a long time. For instance, writing is an outsourcing of memory; money is a scalar that allows the comparison of vastly different objects.
During the last century, the outsourcing process has become more diverse and intense. The range of our recent activities is leading toward a number of "different kinds" of superhuman intelligence.
In this presentation, I'll discuss several different paths to superintelligence, their relative power, the transformations they might create, and how humans might deal with them.
Vernor Vinge is a science-fiction writer, winner of five Hugo Awards. He holds a PhD (mathematics) from University of California, San Diego and taught mathematics and computer science at San Diego State University from 1972 to 2000. In 1982, at a panel for AAAI-82, he proposed that technology would accelerate the evolution of intelligence, leading to a kind of "singularity" beyond which merely human extrapolation was essentially impossible. In the 1980s and 1990s, he elaborated on this theme in both his science fiction and nonfiction writing.