AI4Science @Caltech

AI4science is a new initiative launched at Caltech that aims to broaden the impact of AI and ML across all areas of sciences. The inaugural workshop was held on Aug. 1st. My student Jeremy Bernstein wrote a detailed article on the workshop. The slides of the talks are also available there.

https://sites.google.com/view/ai-for-science-workshop/about-ai4science

A short blurb of the article: Across science—from astrophysics to molecular biology to economics—a common problem persists: scientists are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data they are collecting. But this problem might be better viewed as an opportunity, since with appropriate computing resources and algorithmic tools, scientists might hope to unlock insights from these swathes of data to carry their field forward. AI4science is a new initiative at Caltech aiming to bring together computer scientists with experts in other disciplines. While somewhat of a suitcase term, AI or artificial intelligence here means the combination of machine learning algorithms with large compute resources.

Professor Yisong Yue of Caltech’s Computing & Mathematical Sciences department (CMS) gave the first talk, where he gave a general overview of machine learning algorithms and their relevance across science and engineering. Professor Andrew Stuart, also in CMS, gave the talk following Professor Yue. Stuart discussed his interest in fusing data science techniques with known physical law. Frederick Eberhardt, professor of philosophy, spoke next. He discussed his work on causal inference. Professor Anima Anandkumar of the CMS department was the last computer scientist to speak. Anandkumar gave an overview of a successful machine learning technique known as artificial neural networks, which have dramatically improved the ability of computers to understand images and natural language. Anandkumar also spoke about tensor methods in machine learning. The remainder of the day was devoted to talks from scientists who have had success applying machine learning techniques in their respective fields. For more, check out the AI4science website.