CADIA's AI Lecture Series Talk - Kristinn R. Thorísson - Architecting Cognition
WHERE: Room K-5 Kringlan 1
WHEN: Wednesday 03.12.08 from 12-13
ABSTRACT:
Smart, versatile robots that can directly work and interact with people remain beyond the reach of current technological reality.
Although not widely recognized, chief among the challenges that must be addressed for this to happen is the need to build large, integrative control systems, systems capable of coordinating a multitude of perception, decision and action mechanisms. An architectural blueprint that specifies how robot components should be built, connected and run differs in many respects from standard information technology software methodology. This talk describes work on building such integrated architectures for controlling humanoid robots and virtual characters, including recent work on the Honda ASIMO humanoid robot. The fundamental principles and current state of the art will be described, along with examples of early and recent efforts of the author to build systems with integrated reactive and reflective capabilities. The talk will also describe CDM, a methodology which has grown out of this work, and Psyclone, a software framework for developing large, integrated AI architectures.
SHORT BIO:
Dr. Kristinn Thórisson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Reykjavík University. He has been researching artificial intelligence for nearly two decades, in academia and industry. At MIT he pioneered technologies in the area of virtual, intelligent agents with integrated multi-modal perception and action control. As Chief Wizard at LEGO Digital he directed the creation of a large virtual world inhabited by interactive creatures and as VP of Engineering in New York he directed the development of automated virtual sales assistants for Internet commerce. He has consulted on technology and business for British Telecom and NASA, among others, and is currently the founding co-director of CADIA (http:// cadia.ru.is), Reykjavik University's AI lab. Kristinn holds a Ph.D. in Media Arts and Sciences from the MIT Media Laboratory. http://www.ru.is/faculty/thorisson
