Inverse Programming for Deeper AI with Zenna Tavares - TWiML Talk #114

Show notes

For today’s show, the final episode of our Black in AI Series, I’m joined by Zenna Tavares, a PhD student in the both the department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT. I spent some time with Zenna after his talk at the Strange Loop conference titled “Running Programs in Reverse for Deeper AI.” Zenna shares some great insight into his work on program inversion, an idea which lies at the intersection of Bayesian modeling, deep-learning, and computational logic. We set the stage with a discussion of inverse graphics and the similarities between graphic inversion and vision inversion. We then discuss the application of these techniques to intelligent systems, including the idea of parametric inversion. Last but not least, zenna details how these techniques might be implemented, and discusses his work on ReverseFlow, a library to execute tensorflow programs backwards, and Sigma.jl a probabilistic programming environment implemented in the dynamic programming language Julia. This talk packs a punch, and I’m glad to share it with you. Be sure to check out some of the great names that will be at the AI Conference in New York, Apr 29–May 2, where you'll join the leading minds in AI, Peter Norvig, George Church, Olga Russakovsky, Manuela Veloso, and Zoubin Ghahramani. Explore AI's latest developments, separate what's hype and what's really game-changing, and learn how to apply AI in your organization right now. Save 20% on most passes with discount code PCTWIML at twimlai.com/ainy2018. The notes for this show can be found at twimlai.com/talk/114. For complete contest details, visit twimlai.com/myai. For complete series details, visit twimlai.com/blackinai2018

Guests

Zenna Tavares

Researcher

Columbia UniversityMIT