Panel series on the vectors of Cognitive AI

Upcoming panels:

TBA

Previous panels:

Multiway Systems as Models to Understand Mind and Universe - a Conversation with Stephen Wolfram

Panel recording and full program

Date: Apr 12, 2-3:30 pm PDT

Vectors of Cognitive AI: Self-organisation

Panel recording and full program.

Date: Feb 22, 2022, 9-11 am PST

Vectors of Cognitive AI: Attention

Panel recording and full program

9-11 am PST, Jan 20, 2022

Panelists: Michael Graziano, Jonathan Cohen, Vasudev Lal, Joscha Bach

The seminal contribution "Attention is all you need" (Vasvani et al. 2017), which introduced the Transformer algorithm, triggered a small revolution in machine learning. Unlike convolutional neural networks, which construct each feature out of a fixed neighborhood of signals, Transformers learn which data a feature on the next layer of a neural network should attend to. However, attention in neural networks is very different from the integrated attention in a human mind. In our minds, attention seems to be part of a top-down mechanism that actively creates a coherent, dynamic model of reality, and plays a crucial role in planning, inference, reflection and creative problem solving. Our consciousness appears to be involved in maintaining the control model of our attention.

In this panel, we want to discuss avenues into our understanding of attention, in the context of machine learning, cognitive science and future developments of AI.

Vectors of Cognitive AI: Motivation and Autonomy

Panel recording and full program

Dec 9, 2021. 9:00-11:00 am PST

Talks:

Cristiano Castelfranchi: Grounding Sociality in Goal Theory

Christian Balkenius: Motivation, Emotion, and Attention

Dietrich Dörner: The Competence Motivation

Joscha Bach: Motivation for individual and collective agency

Panel on Representational Paradigms for Cognitive AI

Panel recording and full program

Oct 21, 2021. 9:00-11:00 am PDT

Talks:

Mark Bickhard: Cognition and Truth Value

Stephen Grossberg: How Each Brain Makes a Mind: From Brain Resonances to Conscious Experiences

Yulia Sandamirskaya: Memory, intentionality, and autonomy enabled by neuronal attractor dynamics

Jerome Busemeyer: Modeling cognition and decision using quantum probability theory

Steven Rogers: What are the tenets for machine representations (artificial qualia?) that enable flexible behaviors?

Joscha Bach: Perception, Reflection and Coherence