scienceofintelligence.de

Guillermo Gallego (Science of Intelligence), " Beyond the Blink - New Applications and Methods for Event Cameras"
2024-05-02 16:00 - 17:30 (Europe/Berlin) | MAR 2.057
More details to follow.

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI (room 2.057).

Joshua B. Evans, “Creating Multi-Level Skill Hierarchies in Reinforcement Learning”
2024-05-02 10:00 - 11:00
Abstract:

What is a useful skill hierarchy for an autonomous agent? In this talk, we will consider a possible answer based on a graphical representation of how the interaction between an agent and its environment may unfold. The proposed approach uses modularity maximisation as a central organising principle to expose the structure of the interaction graph at multiple levels of abstraction. The result is a collection of skills that operate at varying time scales, organised into a hierarchy, where skills that operate over longer time scales are composed of skills that operate over shorter time scales. The entire skill hierarchy is generated automatically, with no human intervention, including the skills themselves (their behaviour, when they can be called, and when they terminate) as well as the hierarchical dependency structure between them. In a wide range of environments, this approach generates skill hierarchies that are intuitively appealing and that considerably improve the learning performance agents given access to them.

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI.
Photo by Bofu Shaw on Unsplash

Girls' Day 2024
2024-04-25 13:00 - 16:00
This year, SCIoI is once again delighted to be part of Girls’ Day, an event dedicated to offering school-aged girls the opportunity to explore new experiences and gain insights into the realm of STEM related research. This time around, our researchers Palina Bartashevich, Asieh Daneshi, Soledad Traverso, Anna Lange, and David Mezey, with the help of our lab managers Matthis Kaiser, Michael Brück, and Rolf Struikmans and Diversity Manager Lujain Kretzschmar will be showing the girls around SCIoI, offering hands-on demonstrations on topics such as Virtual Reality, interacting with robots, fish swarms, and mouse lockboxes. The girls will also visit the laser cutter and get to build their own 3D puzzle robot.

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI.
Ph. by Adrien Converse on Unsplash.

Serge Belongie (University of Copenhagen), "Searching for Structure in Unfalsifiable Claims"
2024-04-18 16:00 - 17:00
Abstract:
While advances in automated fact-checking are critical in the fight against the spread of misinformation in social media, we argue that more attention is needed in the domain of unfalsifiable claims. In this talk, we outline some promising directions for identifying the prevailing narratives in shared content (image & text) and explore how the associated learned representations can be used to identify misinformation campaigns and sources of polarization.

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI.
Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash.

Pavel Němec (Charles University), “Two Independent Origins of Complex Brains and Intelligent Behavior in Birds and Mammals”
2024-04-18 10:00 - 11:30
Abstract:

Over the last 20 years, it has been shown that birds and mammals are startlingly similar in their cognitive repertoire. Even the most intelligent taxa from each group – great apes and large corvids and parrots – match each other in most domains of cognition. This functional similarity is remarkable considering that birds and mammals shared a last common ancestor about 325 million years ago. Moreover, avian brains are small and lack a cerebral cortex arranged in layers. My talk will focus on recent discoveries showing that birds and mammals independently evolved brains with dramatically increased neuron numbers in the telencephalon and cerebellum, brain parts associated with higher cognition. This brain information processing capacity surge in birds and mammals is associated with the elaboration of at least partly non-homologous neural circuitry. Moreover, similar functions are processed in different, non-homological forebrain regions. Extreme neuron packing densities in birds partly explain why they have similar cognitive levels as mammals, but volumetrically much smaller brains. Astoundingly, phylogenetic analysis suggests that as few as four major changes in neuron-brain scaling in over 300 million years of evolution pave the way to intelligence in endothermic land vertebrates.

Ph. kindly provided by Pavel Němec.

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI.

Hector Garcia De Marina (University of Granada), “Practical Challenges in Formation Control and Mobile Robot Swarms”
2024-04-11 10:00 - 11:00 | MAR 2.057
Abstract:
Robot swarms have the potential to assist us with simpler logistics in persistent missions involving vast scenarios. Robot swarms also promise added resilience to complete their objectives despite unforeseen difficulties. However, current demonstrations of swarm technology in unstructured environments only count on single-digit individuals. That is farther from what one would expect from the huge scaling potential of a swarm. What are the bottlenecks then?
In this talk, I will present some practical challenges that mobile robot swarms face in fundamental tasks, e.g., the control of specific geometry parameters during a swarm deployment, also known as formation control. As an application of higher-level tasks leveraging formation control, we will see the coordination of robots while tracking paths and the source-seeking of scalar fields.
I will also focus on onboard imperfections and how they are responsible for non-designed emergent behavior. Nevertheless, I will show some hidden opportunities within the imperfections that could assist us with practical deployments.

Related articles (free links to Arxiv):
Maneuvering and robustness issues in undirected displacement-consensus-based formation control: https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.03544
Guiding vector fields for the distributed motion coordination of mobile robots: https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.09478v4
Resilient source seeking with robot swarms: https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.02937
Behavioral-based circular formation control for robot swarms: https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.09101

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI.
Photo by Louis Reed on Unsplash.

Jacek Wiland, "Assessing the Factual Knowledge Contained in Language Models During Lifelong Learning"
2024-04-04 10:00 - 23:30
More details to follow.

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI.

Heiner Spieß (Science of Intelligence), “Tools to Study the Generality of Deep Neural Network Representations”
2024-03-28 10:00 - 11:30

Fariba Karimi (Graz University of Technology), "Complexity Science for Societal Good"
2024-03-21 10:00 - 11:00 | MAR 2.057
Abstract:
Social inequalities — structured and recurrent patterns of unequal distribution of wealth, opportunities, and rewards — are on the rise, and quick-fix, top-down approaches are failing. Structural inequality is one of the important manifestations of social inequalities in which institutions, policies, and societies create systems of privilege that are structural barriers to equality and inclusiveness. Structural inequalities emerge and evolve in complex multi-dimensional social networks. With the rise of artificial intelligence and algorithms in decision-making processes, such inequalities are being reinforced and exacerbated in a non-linear, complex manner that is difficult to comprehend and tackle. To address and mitigate such timely issues, we need a complexity science approach and interdisciplinary teams more than ever.

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI.
Photo by Vincentiu Solomon on Unsplash.

Michael Beetz (Universität Bremen), "Empowering Robots with Digital Mental Models: Filling the Cognitive Gap for Everyday Tasks"
2024-03-21 08:00 - 17:00
In this talk I introduce Digital Mental Models (DMMs) as a novel cognitive capability of AI-powered and cognition-enabled robots. By combining digital twin technology with symbolic knowledge representation and embodying this combination into robots, we tackle the challenge of converting vague task requests into specific robot actions, that is robot motions that cause desired physical effects and avoid unwanted side effects. This breakthrough enables robots to perform everyday manipulation tasks with an unprecedented level of context-sensitivity, foresight, generality, and transferability. DMMs narrow the cognitive divide currently existing in robotics by equipping robots with a profound understanding of the physical world and how it works.

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI.

POSTPONED: Onur Güntürkün (Ruhr-Universität Bochum), “The Evolution of Brain and Cognition: A Wild Hypothesis”
2024-03-07 16:00 - 17:00
Onur Güntürkün is regarded as a pioneer of biologically based psychology. The aim of his work is to find out how perception, thought and action arise in the brain.
He is interested in diverse topics, such as motor learning, fear, risk-taking behavior and even kissing. In his research, Güntürkün combines psychological, biological and neuroanatomical aspects with concepts and findings from the comparative behavioral and neurosciences. Using magpies as an example, he was able to show that birds recognize themselves in the mirror and are therefore able to develop a kind of self-concept. This finding is astonishing because they lack the cerebral cortex in their brains. This is precisely what controls this ability in primates. Building on this finding, Güntürkün also succeeded in proving that the forebrain structures of birds and primates have converged in an evolutionary process. Despite their different structures, they converge in their neurobiological basis and their behavioral performance.

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI.
Photo by Sammie Chaffin on Unsplash.

Christian Poth (Bielefeld University), “Task-Driven Phasic Alertness: How Being Ready for Action Relies on the Current Task”
2024-03-07 10:00 - 23:00
Abstract:
Humans often must respond quickly to events happening in their environment. To support fast perception and action, the brain has evolved a warning system. Warning stimuli are used to elicit a transient state of readiness for perception and action (phasic alertness) that results in faster perceptual processing and faster decision-making for action. Phasic alertenss is assumed to be “unintelligent” in the sense that it is driven by the warning stimuli, irrespective of the cognitive task set and the expectations guiding goal-directed behavior in the current task. Here, we review recent findings that falsify this assumption. We provide evidence that phasic alertness presupposes an expectation that stimuli can serve as a warning within the current task. In addition, we show that within a task, phasic alertness unfolds in action-focused episodes that restrict its effects to only the next action in an action sequence. Together, these findings reveal that phasic alertness is not entirely stimulus-based (bottom-up), but also relies on the cognitive mechanisms for (top-down) control of task-driven and goal-directed action and thus the “intelligent” interaction with the environment.

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI.
Photo by Kirill Pershin on Unsplash

Winter School "Ethics of Neuroscience and AI" 2024
2024-02-26 - 2024-03-01
The 13th Winter School “Ethics of Neuroscience and AI” is taking place on Feb 26 – March 1, 2024. It is organized by the BCCN Berlin/ICCN, the Berlin School of Mind and Brain, and the Excellence Cluster “Science of Intelligence”. The event is tailored for MSc and PhD students, but covers a range of topics of potential interest to other researchers, reflecting on the ethical and societal consequences of modern neuroscience.
Theoretical foundations, as well as practical and ethical aspects are addressed. Participants will benefit from a combination of lectures with group work and discussions, where they will put the learned content into practice.
Scientific organizers: John-Dylan Haynes and Thomas Schmidt.
Fees: The Winter School is free of cost but registration is necessary.
Venue: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Philippstr. 13 Haus 6, 10115 Berlin.

Antonio Bicchi (University of Pisa), “What Is It Like To Be a Bot?”
2024-02-22 16:00 - 17:30
Abstract
The impressive evolution that artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and robotics have recently undergone reached a point where it is now possible to fuse these technologies and create another body for the self. This possibility poses new questions at the core of embodied intelligence. In this talk I will examine a few of the technical, scientific, and philosophical issues related to using robots as avatars and “being a bot.”

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI.

Photo by Owen Beard on Unsplash.

Tim Kietzmann (University of Osnabrück), “Large Language Models Offer a Rich Representational Format for Understanding the Transformation of Visual Information in the Human Brain.”
2024-02-22 10:00 - 11:00
Abstract: Originating from the connectionist movement of cognitive science, deep neural networks (DNNs) have had tremendous influence on artificial intelligence, operating at the core of today’s most powerful applications. At the same time, cognitive computational neuroscientists have recognised their promise to act as “Goldilocks” models of brain function: DNNs are grounded in sensory data, can be trained to perform complex tasks in a distributed fashion, are fully configurable/accessible to the experimenter, and can be mapped to brain function across various levels of explanation. This has led to a fruitful research cycle in which biological aspects are integrated into network design, and the corresponding networks are then tested for their ability to predict neural and behavioural data. This talk will present this emerging approach, which we call neuroconnectionism, as a cohesive large-scale research programme centered around ANNs as a computational language for expressing falsifiable theories about brain computation. As a case study, I will focus on a collaborative effort in which we test the ability of large-language models (LLMs) to provide a good representational format for modelling human visual responses to natural scenes. By running tightly controlled model comparisons, we demonstrate that recurrent neural networks, trained to map from pixels to semantic LLM embedding, provide the current best account of a large-scale, 7T fMRI dataset (NSD), outperforming other supervised as well as unsupervised ANN models. These findings point towards the view that vision may not be optimised for visual categorisation alone, but instead maps from retinal input into a high-dimensional semantic format that can be captured by contextual learning in language.

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI.
Photo by Pietro Jeng on Unsplash.

Stefan Leutgeb, “Hippocampal Computations in Support of Spatial Navigation and Working Memory”
2024-02-01 10:00 - 11:00 | MAR 2.057
Stefan Leutgeb is Professor of Neurobiology at University of California San Diego. Currently a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin with his research on neural computations in real brains and in artificial systems. More details to follow.

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI.
Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash.

Verena Hafner (Science of Intelligence), “Tool Use and Agency in Artificial Systems”
2024-01-25 16:00 - 17:00

Oren Forkosh (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), "Behavior, Personality, and Affective States of Freely Behaving Groups of Mice and Other Animals"
2024-01-25 10:00 - 11:00
Behavior, Personality, and Affective States of Freely Behaving Groups of Mice and Other Animals
In recent years, the study of animal behavior in neuroscience has seen a significant shift towards more naturalistic and less intrusive methods. It is under these conditions that the true spectrum of animal behavior can be exhibited, free from the artificial constraints and stressful conditions often imposed by traditional laboratory settings. In this talk, I will discuss the interplay between behavior, personality, and affective states as measured in our “social boxes”; These systems allow for the continuous and unattended tracking of groups of mice over extended periods and can automatically recognize and catalog over 100 distinct behaviors. A four-day experiment, for example, can potentially replace a myriad of classical tests typically used in neuroscience. Our system can also discern and record a ‘behavioral fingerprint’ for each mouse. These fingerprints reveal consistent traits—personalities—that are not only distinct between individuals but also persist over time. In addition, by examining the interplay between behavior and personality across multiple timescales – from seconds to days – we can gain insights into the affective states of these animals. Finally, expanding our research to other species, including bats, cows, and even humans, allows us to develop a general understanding of behavior and personality. This comparative strategy holds promise for developing a ‘universal translator’ of behavioral and personality patterns, paving the way for new comparative studies. These insights into the personalities and emotions of both humans and animals have the potential to significantly enhance our knowledge of the neurobiological underpinnings of behavior.
—Oren Forkosh is a PI at the Lab for Computational Neuroscience- Behavior, Personality and Cognition at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The Forkosh lab uses machine-learning to understand personality, behaviour, hierarchy, communication, social learning, and much more, in order to make the world happier for animals and people alike.

POSTPONED: Richard McElreath, "The Cultural and Ecological Nature of Intelligence"
2024-01-18 16:00 - 17:30
Abstract:
How do we reconcile the extraordinary success of the human species with the apparent stupidity of people and organizations? How can we understand the transformation of humans from foraging apes to urban clerks, without any appreciable change in physiology? No one has definitive answers to these questions, but we begin to answer them by appreciating the ways in which populations think over cultural and ecological time scales.

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI.

Photo by ALAN DE LA CRUZ on Unsplash.

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Asieh Daneshi (Science of Intelligence), “Behavioral Contagion in Human and Artificial Multi-Agent Systems”
2024-01-18 10:00 - 11:00
In this talk, Asieh will explore the dynamics of decision-making and risk-taking within social contexts and how everyday decisions, often laden with potential negative outcomes, are influenced not only by individual judgment but significantly by the surrounding social environment. Her research employs the “Balloon Analogue Risk-Taking” experiment in a controlled setting applying VR-technology in order to investigate the impact of dynamic social interactions on individual risk assessment. Various aspects, such as the effect of peers on risk perception, group dynamics in decision-making, and the influence of social norms on risk-taking behaviors are part of her study.
By observing how individuals in a group adapt their decisions based on others’ actions and outcomes, she aims to understand the balancing act between individual decision-making and group conformity. This research explores decision-making in a constantly changing social environment, offering new insights into how group dynamics can lead to either more risk-taking or conservative behaviors. The findings promise to enhance our understanding of the complex interplay between personal psychology and group influence.

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI.

Rebecca Laxzarides (Science of Intelligence), “Adaptivity in Social Interaction”
2023-12-14 16:00 - 17:30 | MAR 2.057

Aravind Battaje and Vito Mengers, "Principles at Play: What is Intelligence?"
2023-12-14 10:00 - 11:00 | MAR 2.057
What is intelligence? We delve into the collaborative efforts at SCIoI, where we aim to understand intelligence through the identification of commonalities. Inspired by ongoing research and historical parallels, we present candidate principles, inviting the audience to contribute insights and discuss their alignment with ongoing projects. This talk marks a step towards refining our understanding of intelligence, emphasizing the pivotal role principles play in shaping our collective reflections and influencing future research trajectories.

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI.

Martin Rolfs (Science of Intelligence)
2023-11-30 16:00 - 17:30 | MAR 2.057

Eva Wiese (TU Berlin), “Social Perception and Attention in Human-Robot Interaction: Bottom-Up and Top-Down Influences”
2023-11-30 10:00 - 11:00 | MAR 2.057
Eva Wiese is the professor for Cognitive Psychology and Ergonomics at TU Berlin. More details to follow.

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI.
Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash,

Marc Toussaint (Science of Intelligence), "Planning-as-Inference vs. Optimization"
2023-11-16 16:00 - 17:30 | MAR 2.057
This talk will take place in person at SCIoI (room 2.057).

Berlin Science Week 2023 – David Bierbach, “From Chaos to Order: How Large Collectives Benefit From Being in a Critical State Between Complete Disorder and Strong Structure”
2023-11-09 18:30 - 19:30
SCIoI member David Bierbach showcases the RoboFish demonstrator and invited the audience to explore collective behaviour and its connection to robotics and artificial intelligence. Inspired by the rules that shape fish and bird swarms, the project that underlies this demonstrator explores the complexities of social interactions. The robotic fish integrates itself into groups of live fish and enable thus the study of social processes within groups – something that is not possible without Robo Fish! In this demonstrator, you can steer the Robo Fish and test how well you would act as a “real” fish. The Robo Fish holds immense research potential, fostering collaborations with biologists, roboticists and physicists.

Pawel Romanczuk (Science of Intelligence), “Collective Behavior – Quid Est?”
2023-11-09 16:00 - 17:30 | MAR 2.057
Collective behavior is a generic term used across many different fields and context, and thus it can refer to very different kind of collective phenomena exhibited by animal and human collectives, such as collective locomotion, collective decision making or behavioral contagion processes. In this lecture, I will try to give a classification of different types of collective behaviors highlighting potential similarities and differences from a theoretical point of view. Further, I will provide a brief overview on how they are typically modeled. Finally, I will discuss ambiguities on what is actually meant e.g. by collective decision making, and how caution should be executed when adopting some idealized models from statistical physics to model real-world phenomena.

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI (room 2.057).

Daniela Vallentin (MPI for Biological Intelligence), “Neural Mechanisms of Vocal Learning and Production in Songbirds”
2023-11-09 10:00 - 11:00 | MAR 2.057
Daniela Vallentin is a neuroscientist and currently the Lise Meitner Reseach Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence, heading the ‘Neural Circuits for Vocal Communication’ Group whose objective is to explore the neural circuits driving skilled motor learning and orchestrating the coordination of precise movements by working with songbirds. Due to the homology of brain structures in birds and mammals, studying the neural mechanisms of vocal learning and coordination in songbirds has the potential to reveal general principles of motor circuits in other animals, including humans.

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI.
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash

Intercluster Science Slam at Berlin Science Week
2023-11-02 19:30 - 21:00
On 2 November we will be back: the seven Berlin Excellence Clusters are organizing another science slam for the Berlin Science Week 2023. Last year’s great success demonstrated what a fun event it is and how much interest there is in the research areas of the seven Excellence Clusters. Make sure not to miss Berlin’s brightest scientists on the stage!
Early career scientists from the seven Clusters present their research projects in an engaging and entertaining way, as they compete for the honor of best Science-Slammer. As always: the louder the cheers, the safer the win! You can expect a potpourri of knowledge; from application-oriented mathematics, artificial intelligence, catalysis/green chemistry, and neuroscience, to active materials, and even to liberal democracy and world literature. Show up, support your favorites, and get smarter!
At our Science Slam, scientists try everything to entertain their audience. The sky is the limit when it comes to what’s possible. Costumes, props, movies, power-point presentations or other experimental setups – everything is allowed. The only limit is time – every slammer will have ten minutes at most. And the audience will decide which presentation is best through clapping and enthusiastic cheers!

Jonas Frenkel and Uroš Petković (Science of Intelligence), “Social Responsiveness and Its Effects on Learning in Human-Human and Human-Robot Interaction”
2023-11-02 10:00 - 11:00 | MAR 2.057
More details to follow.

This talk will take place in person at SCIoI.
Photo by Katja Anokhina on Unsplash.
