Edinburgh Science: Games Robots Play

13 April 2023, 7pm (UK), Bayes Centre

Human-competitive game playing agents have been an important part of the development of the field of Artificial Intelligence. How do they now help us address the challenges of robot learning in a human-centered world? Join Prof Ram Ramamoorthy to discuss autonomy, interaction and emerging questions around how to make these safe and trustworthy.

About the event

The event will include Professor Ramamoorthy's talk followed by a discussion.

The talk is complimentary to the demonstration of MENACE that will take place earlier that day in the National Museum of Scotland. The talk will be centred around the question of how robot is learning to play in a human-centred environment. Examples of AIs that will be examined are domestic robots, autonomous vehicles and planes - which showcase how far we got from matchboxes used to build MENACE.

About the speaker

Prof. Ramamoorthy

 

Prof Subramanian (Ram) Ramamoorthy holds the Chair of Robot Learning and Autonomy in the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, where he is also the Director of the Institute of Perception, Action and Behaviour. He is the Principal Investigator leading the UKRI Research Node on Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Governance and Regulation, Executive Committee Member for the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics and Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute. He received his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in 2007. He has been an elected Member of the Young Academy of Scotland at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and Visiting Professor at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and Stanford University.  His research focus is on robot learning and decision-making under uncertainty, with particular emphasis on achieving safe and robust autonomy inhuman-centred environments. Between 2017 - 2020, he served as Vice President - Prediction and Planning at FiveAI, a UK-based startup company developing autonomous vehicles technology. He continues to be involved with the company as Scientific Advisor.

Related links 

Tickets
60 Years of Computer Science and AI
Robust Autonomy and Decisions Group website