Menlo Park, California — More than 1000 dedicated volunteers have organized what promises to be an outstanding, multidimensional program for the Twenty-second AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-07), and the collocated Nineteenth Innovative Applications of AI Conference (IAAI-07). This is the place to meet the top tiers and the next generation of AI researchers and practitioners. When not ensconced in conference sessions, attendees can also explore spectacular Vancouver, which is nestled in the mountains, waterways, and rainforests of British Columbia.
World-class invited speakers
World-class speakers on cutting-edge topics have been invited to address this year’s conference. The Keynote Presidential Address will be given by AAAI President Alan Mackworth (University of British Columbia).
For the innovative applications (IAAI-07) conference, invited speakers include:
- Oren Etzioni (University of Washington and Farecast)
Etzioni is known for his technical work in intelligent agents, data mining, and Web search; and for founding three companies, including most recently, Farecast, a company that utilizes data mining to inform consumers about the right time to buy air tickets. Farecast has won numerous awards in 2006, including TIME’s “50 Coolest Web Sites” and PC World’s “20 Most Innovative Products.” Etzioni will give this year’s Robert S. Engelmore Memorial Award Lecture, entitled AI in a Moore’s Law World: the Stories of Farecast and KnowItAll. - Matt Brown (Maxis / Electronic Arts)
Brown was the technical director and designer for Electronic Art’s FIFA franchise for many years and later for The Sims 2 at Maxis. He is now the creative/design director for future versions of The Sims and SimCity. He is obsessed with creating the illusion of life through simplification, scale, and sleight of hand, as well as the practical application of AI. In his talk, Big “A,” Small “I”: Smart Ends from Simple Means, he will cover various elements of the game design, behavioral AI, and structure behind The Sims 2 as well as future efforts in products such as The Sims and SimCity. - Geoffrey S. F. Ling (DARPA, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Johns Hopkins Hospital)
Ling is responsible for a portfolio of DARPA programs that include Revolutionizing Prosthesis, Human Assisted Neural Devices, Preventing Violent Explosive Neuro Trauma, Predicting Health and Disease, and Long-Term Blood Storage. He is also developing new programs with the intent of protecting and restoring injured warfighters. He will speak on Revolutionizing Prostheses: A Program of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) research targeted at treating extremity/traumatic brain injuries using assistive devices that leverage off of biological capabilities.
For the technical AAAI-07 conference, speakers include:
- Alan Schultz (Naval Research Laboratory, Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence)
Schultz will speak on Moving toward Peer-to-Peer Human-Robot Interaction, describing recent multidisciplinary approaches in the emerging field of human-robot interaction. - Toby Walsh (NICTA and University of New South Wales)
Distinguished for his work in automated reasoning, Walsh will speak on Representing and Reasoning about Preferences. - Michael Wooldridge (University of Liverpool, UK)
Respected for his work in intelligent agents, Wooldridge will speak on Logic for Automated Mechanism Design — A Progress Report. - Lise Getoor (University of Maryland, College Park)
This prominent young researcher working in the exciting new area of statistical relational learning will speak on Graph Identification.
Global Reach for Innovative Applications (IAAI-07)
This year’s 22 papers accepted for the Nineteenth Innovative Applications of AI conference signal two significant trends in AI applications. For the first time, the number of award-winning deployed applications is split evenly between non-U.S. (5) and U.S.-based (5) winners, and total non-US papers are a record 9, with the U.S. having 13. This is one of many indications of the growing global nature of AAAI.
Of far greater significance is the scale of impact of this crop of winning applications. One winner, for example, from Changing Worlds Ltd., Ireland, that enables intelligent content discovery on the mobile Internet, has been deployed to 40 mobile operators and millions of subscribers around the world.
Through the years, IAAI has had several award-winning applications which automate financial underwriting in various ways. Fannie Mae, the institution formed by the U.S. government in 1938 to help citizens purchase homes and privatized in 1968, has taken intelligent underwriting to a new level with a Web-based system that enables mortgage lenders to build their own automated underwriting applications. Another Web-based winner is journal-ranking.com, a global academic journal ranking system from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology that is now getting a million hits per month.
Since the emergence of data mining technology in the early 1990s, IAAI has also recognized a number of innovative DM applications. This year, IAAI recognizes the first innovative, intelligent application to be deployed on the Semantic Web. It provides access to a virtual solar-terrestrial observatory – a concatenation of heterogeneous observational datasets that appear as if all resources are organized, stored and retrieved/used in a common way.
For those interested in cooperating robots, Kiva Systems (U.S.) has received an award for a production system that coordinates hundreds of cooperating, autonomous robotic vehicles in warehouses.
These are but a few of the 22 applications to be presented at this year’s IAAI-07 conference – 10 deployed applications and 12 emerging – that continue IAAI’s tradition of demonstrating the profound impact AI is having throughout modern science and industry.
Broad, diverse technical tracks
This year’s bumper crop of papers continues to meet AAAI’s high standards. “We have had an outstanding number of excellent papers submitted,” notes AAAI President Alan Mackworth. “In particular, we have had a very high level of international participation, reflecting the increasingly global nature of AI research. The quality of the accepted papers and invited speakers is very high.”
A record 923 papers were submitted to the technical program this year, coming from a record 45 countries, with 560 papers (61%) from outside the United States. A total of 251 (27%) were accepted, covering a wide range of current AI research topics such as agents, evolutionary computation, interactive entertainment, machine learning, data mining, natural language processing, and many more.
The ever-popular Mobile Robot Competition and Exhibition returns for its sixteenth year. A growing number of competitions include the General Game Playing Competition with a $10,000 purse; the Computer Poker Competition; the Human vs. Machine Poker Challenge with a world-class poker player; the Trading Agents Competition; and the new AI Video Competition. The goal of this competition is to communicate AI research and applications in a fun, creative, and exciting medium.
Four Special Tracks are also offered. AI and the Web will focus on AI concepts, systems, and techniques for the world wide web. The Integrated Intelligence special track evaluates various approaches and techniques that synergistically combine abilities from distinct areas of AI to achieve intelligent behavior. The Senior Member Presentation track provides an opportunity for established researchers to give a broad talk on a well-developed body of research, an important new research area, or a thoughtful critique of trends in the field. The Nectar track makes the most significant AI results presented at related conferences in the last two years available to a broad AI audience.
Sixteen tutorials will cover a wide range of topics. Fifteen workshops are open to attendees, with a separate fee. An Intelligent Systems Demonstrations will showcase research systems. There will also be a select Vendor Exhibition.
Beautiful British Columbia
July is a wonderful month to explore Vancouver and British Columbia. “It’s a coincidence that AAAI-07 happens to be in Canada in the year we changed our name,” says Mackworth, who is a professor at UBC. “But it does reflect the globalization of AI research, as does the new name of AAAI. “Vancouver in July is a perfect place to visit,” he continues. “Plan, if you can, to spend a few extra days exploring Vancouver and British Columbia. The weather, the mountains, the ocean, and the forest are idyllic in July – I can guarantee it! Make your plans now. Renew old acquaintances and make new friends as you learn about the latest and greatest AI breakthroughs. Don’t miss it.” There is an abundance of recreational opportunities for all manner of visitors: e.g., Stanley Park and the Aquarium in Vancouver; the world-class Butchart Gardens, a ferry ride away on Vancouver Island; the marine wilderness of Desolation Sound; or fishing at Campbell River for those who really want to get away from it all. http://www.tourismvancouver.com/visitors/
For conference information and registration, see
- http://www.aaai.org/Conferences/AAAI/2007/aaai07technical.php and http://www.aaai.org/Conferences/IAAI/iaai07.php.
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