Special Seminar: Perspectives on AI Risk or "How I learned to stop worrying and love AI"

Optional ZOOM LINK
Meeting ID: 978 2415 7056
Passcode: 540339

In Voltaire's Candide, Dr. Pangloss is relentlessly optimistic in the face of novella's unflinching portrait of the human condition; his opposite, Martin, is pessimistic and cynical. Today's developments around Artificial Intelligence are being driven by similarly opposing forces. The Panglossian approach views AI as humanity's grasping of Promethean fire whereas others see existential risk and threats to human safety, privacy, and wellbeing. We might hope that the reality is somewhere in between; and we might suspect that the reason for these extreme views is that we probably have the problems around AI framed incorrectly.

This presentation attempts to summarize my personal views regarding AI that I have developed during my decade away from academia in various forms of public service. First, as a member of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's leadership team in the Defense Sciences Office; next as the founding director of the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security, the Department of Defense's university-affiliated research center for the social sciences and AI at the University of Maryland; and lastly as senior advisor for AI risk modeling for Biden Administration's Office of Science and Technology Policy.

I will provide a practical methodology for identifying emerging scientific and engineering questions related to the ongoing integration of AI with humans and society. Using this approach, I will provide several examples of research questions that merit investigation. In the end, I hope to provide a unique perspective on recent developments in AI and a tangible means by which we might address these daunting emerging challenges.

Hosted by Professor Eugene Santos Jr.

Co-sponsored by Dartmouth's Provost Office, Tuck's Center for Digital Strategies, and Dickey Center's Davidson Institute for Global Security.

About the Speaker(s)

William Regli
Professor of Computer Science, U Maryland at College Park

Professor Regli is a computer scientist who has focused his career on interdisciplinary and use-inspired problems spanning artificial intelligence, engineering and manufacturing, and computational modeling. Regli's recent sponsored research activities include verification and validation of intelligent systems; intelligent computer networks; and the use of artificial intelligence in advanced manufacturing. He has published more than 250 technical articles, created two technology companies (one focused on mobile communications for public safety, the other on information management in edge networks), and produced five foundational US patents in the area of 3D CAD search.

Regli holds a PhD in computer science from the University of Maryland at College Park and Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from Saint Joseph's University. He is an elected senior member of both the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI); and a Fellow of the Computer Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for his "contributions to 3D search, design repositories and intelligent manufacturing," and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for "work at the interface between science and government primarily at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency."

Contact

For more information, contact Amos Johnson at amos.l.johnson@dartmouth.edu.