Seminar in cognitive science and artificial intelligence

Archív seminárov

Program na letný semester 2020/2021

1. seminár

(Utorok 02.03.2021 o 0:00)

Mgr. Matěj Hoffmann, PhD. (Department of Cybernetics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague) , domovská stránka

Learning body models: from humans to humanoid robots

Humans and animals excel in combining information from multiple sensory modalities, controlling their complex bodies, adapting to growth, failures, or using tools. These capabilities are also highly desirable in robots. They are displayed by machines to some extent. Yet, the artificial creatures are lagging behind. The key foundation is an internal representation of the body that the agent—human, animal, or robot—has developed. In this talk, I compare the character of body representations in the brain with their robotic counterparts (fixed vs. plastic, amodal vs. modal, explicit vs. implicit, serial vs. parallel, modular vs. holistic, and centralized vs. distributed) and relate that to the differences in performance that we observe. I will discuss which of the features of the “body in the brain” should be transferred to robots, giving rise to more adaptive and resilient, self-calibrating machines. Finally, I will introduce the notions of embodiment and morphological computation and critically discuss the possibility that "the body computes".

2. seminár

(Utorok 23.03.2021 o 0:00)

Mgr. Vladimír Barus (Dell Technologies, Slovakia)

Cognitive bias: How to fail at evaluating truth claims

Our ancestral history has caused our neural circuitry to be hardwired to perform efficiently, not effectively. This results in a plethora of phenomena collectively known as cognitive bias - ways in which our brains unwittingly deceive us into perceiving, remembering and thinking in patterns that don't always yield the most precise results. This talk aims to be a brief introduction into the topic of cognitive bias - their definition, what kinds there are and how to classify them, why do we have them and what can be done about them. From all the various areas of our lives cognitive bias influence, I chose to tie them to the topic of epistemology - the study of theory of knowledge, where, as I personally believe, we can become better thinkers by simply educating ourselves regarding this phenomenon and respecting it when performing evaluations of truth claims.