Modern artificial intelligence (AI) can produce text and images so realistic that it’s sometimes hard to distinguish them from human creations. How does it do that? Surprisingly, AI is powered by elementary school math, such as addition and multiplication.
The Department of Mathematics, Applied Mathematics and Statistics will host a lecture by Finnish mathematician Samuli SiItanen titled “How AI Detects Cats in Photos Using Elementary School Math” Thursday, Sept. 26, from 4:15 to 5:15 p.m. in Amasa Stone Chapel.
In this talk, SiItanen will take a look at very simple models of human nerve cells and see how they can be combined to build up higher-level AI understanding, first telling summer apart from winter, and then detecting cats in photos. SiItanen also will use Jane Austen’s texts for creating a do-it-yourself AI chatbot.
SiItanen, professor of industrial mathematics in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at University of Helsinki and a team leader in the Finnish Center of Excellence in Inverse Problems Research, is mainly interested in inverse problems of medical imaging. His favorite math topics are electrical impedance tomography and x-ray tomography. He is passionate about popularization of science, publishing videos on two YouTube channels.
This talk is considered an Explore Event for undergraduates.