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Events for November 18, 2010
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CENG, CS & CED/WIE Panel Discussion
Thu, Nov 18, 2010 @ 12:00 PM - 01:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Mondira (Mandy) Pant, Intel, and Dr. Charles Lee Isbell, Jr., Georgia Tech
Talk Title: Why Pursue Graduate School?
Abstract: This panel encourages students to pursue graduate degree(s) in computing and engineering fields at Masterâs and Ph.D. levels. It aims to inspire and prepare students to be successful in graduate school pursuits. Questions addressed by the panel include the following: Why attend grad school, and why in a computing/engineering field as opposed to some other professional field? How does a graduate degree in a computing/engineering field impact oneâs career opportunities and earning potential? 3) What is the difference between a Masters and PhD, how long do each take, and how do the possible career paths differ between the two degrees? What is exciting about doing research, and how can one find out if research is interesting to him/her? How does one get accepted into graduate school, which schools, and how to pay for it? How can one best prepare him/herself to succeed in grad school? What are the biggest challenges?
Host: Prof. Timothy Pinkston, Senior Associate Dean of Engineering
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 324
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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CS Colloquium: CRA-W/CDC Distinguished Lecture Series
Thu, Nov 18, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Charles Lee Isbell, Jr., Georgia Tech
Talk Title: Adaptive Drama Management: Bringing Machine Learning to Interactive Entertainment
Abstract: In recent years, there has been a growing interest in constructing rich interactive entertainment and training experiences. As these experiences have grown in complexity, there has been a corresponding growing need for the development of robust technologies to shape and modify those experiences in reaction to the actions of human participants.
When thinking about how machine learning and artificial intelligence could help, one notes that the traditional goal of AI games---to win the game---is not particularly useful; rather, the goal is to make the human player's play experience better while being consistent with the goals of the author.
In this talk, I will present our technical efforts to achieve this goal by using machine learning as a way to allow designers to specify problems in broad strokes while allowing a machine do further fine-tuning. In particular, I discuss (1) Targeted Trajectory Distribution Markov Decision Processes (TTD-MDPs), an extension of MDPs that provide variety of experience during repeated execution and (2) computational influence, an automated way of operationalizing theories of influence and persuasion from social psychology to help guide players without decreasing their feelings of autonomy. I also describe our evaluation of these techniques with both simulations and an interactive storytelling system with human subjects.
Biography: Dr. Charles Lee Isbell, Jr., received his BS in computer science in 1990 from the Georgia Institute of Technology and his PhD in 1998 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After four years at AT&T Labs, he returned to Georgia Tech as faculty at the College of Computing. Charles' research interests are varied, but recently he has been building autonomous agents that engage in life-long learning in the presence of thousands of other intelligent agents, including humans. His work has been featured in the popular media, including The New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as in technical collections, where he has won two best paper awards in this area. Charles also pursues reform in CS education. He was a developer of Threads, Georgia Tech's new structuring principle for computing curricula. Recently, he has become the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs for the College of Computing.
Host: Dr. Timothy Pinkston, Senior Associate Dean of Engineering
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kanak Agrawal
