Scientific Controversies: Deep Thoughts of Artificial Minds

Yann LeCun is one of the foundational figures in modern AI. A Turing Award winner, he’s the chief architect behind deep learning and convolutional neural networks. While much of the public’s conversation around AI focuses on its social and ethical implications, we turn to those who truly understand what could actually be happening inside this AI black box, the opaque internal system of the AI. How close are machines to thinking? Will machines have minds, and if so, will they have any insight into their own thoughts? What might their minds reveal about our minds? So many questions.

Join LeCun and DeepMind contributor Adam Brown for a conversation hosted by our Director of Sciences, Janna Levin. Over his eight years at Google, Brown has helped drive the astonishing progress of these AI systems as they have evolved from babbling preschoolers to International Math Olympiad gold medallists. In the controversy that has broken out over the development of unrestrained machine general intelligence, he is a vocal advocate for progress in the evolution of these agents and their potential to advance scientific discovery. 

The trio will explore how machines do what they’re doing and if machines can indeed actually think. Together, they’ll probe the boundaries of current machine learning, human understanding, and the tantalizing possibility of machine consciousness.

Before and after the conversation, enjoy grooves by DJ Black Helmet, bites and refreshments, and stargazing in the garden with the Amateur Astronomers’ Association, weather-permitting. A special-edition patch designed by artist Andrea Lauer will be available for purchase at the event.