Menlo Park, California — The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) is holding its Twenty-Third AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-08) July 13-17, 2008, at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in Chicago. Leading AI researchers and developers from around the world will gather to exchange their latest work. “The annual AAAI conference is a nexus for exchanging the latest ideas in the field,” says Eric Horvitz, a principal researcher and research manager at Microsoft Research and President of AAAI. “The constellation of events around the main AAAI conference include stellar set of workshops, competitions, and programs.”
Multidimensional conference
With AI being such a broad field, there will be a wide range of areas and tracks at the multidimensional conference, such as the Robot Workshop and Exhibitions, AI and the Web, the Computer Poker Competition, and the Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence.
In all, there will be a total of 251 technical papers presented, 22 innovative applications of AI papers, the Robot Workshops’ 22 presentations and Exhibition of a number of the robots discussed at the workshops, four competitions, 3 special tracks (e.g., AI and the Web), and 9 Invited Talks, 15 tutorials and 15 workshops.
“AAAI has continued to promote challenging competitions that energize researchers and fuel innovations,” Horvitz says of this year’s competitions, “and these matches come to a head at the conference. This year’s matches include competitions in ecommerce, machine poker, and general game playing—where systems compete on previously unseen games. I’m a particular fan of developing systems that are immersed in a world rife with uncertainty—where even the “rules of the game” are unknown. Such challenges can help to elucidate core principles of intelligence. “Students are the future leaders of our field,” continues Horvitz, “and teaching and mentoring have served a critical role in AI. This year, the conference will include a multi-event Teaching Forum that will bring together educators and researchers to share ideas and experiences about the teaching of AI.”
Innovative Applications of AI
Twenty-two innovative applications of AI will be featured at the conference. These illustrate the broad range of high-impact AI applications in use today around the globe and those coming tomorrow, for example:
- predicting air turbulence for aircraft safety
- selecting crops for sustainable agriculture
- detecting heart disease and treating epilepsy
- documenting traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese herb/ Western drug interactions
- ensuring computer network security
- scheduling personnel for the 2008 summer Olympics Equestrian
- competition
- teaching foreign language and culture to military personnel prior to deployment, and more.
Invited Speakers
This year’s invited speakers present significant work in an array of areas such as research in creating ensembles of cooperating submillimeter robots that together form dynamic 3D physical objects called “claytronics”. Claytronics might be used in telepresense to mimic, for example, the look, feel, and motion of the person at the other end of the “telephone” call. The principal architect of the winning team of the DARPA Urban Challenge will talk about their winner, Boss. Another speaker will discuss the move towards cognitive prostheses. In all there will be nine invited speakers including the AAAI Presidential Address by Eric Horvitz of Microsoft Research.
Robot Workshop and Exhibition
The seventeenth annual robot event at the conference will include two Robot Workshops on “Robotics and Creativity” and “Mobility and Manipulation”. Distinguished researchers from 15 leading U.S. universities (e.g., Stanford, MIT, University of Illinois at Chicago, Carnegie Mellon), three companies (Microsoft Research, Boeing Phantom Works, Hanson Robotics), as well as Program Directors from DARPA and NSF will present current cutting-edge robotics research as well as their visions for the future of robots. The associated Robot Exhibition will include a wide array of cutting-edge experimental robots, such as a humanoid robot that dances to music, the first improvisational percussionist robot, a walking-talking social robot that talks about robotics issues, and an upper-torso humanoid robot that is learning to learn on its own.
For more information about the various aspects of the conferences, please visit: www.aaai.org/Conferences/AAAI/aaai08.php.
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