It’s a truism that information has to be actionable.
We’ll look at the tremendous progress that has been made making technology usable, notably in speech recognition and generation, image processing, and mobile interfaces. We’ll consider how the real-time use of sensors, big data, machine learning, and the cloud will further the process of weaning us from keyboards, buttons, and knobs as technology becomes ever more ubiquitous and effortless. And we’ll ask some bigger questions: How can we put our lives in the hands of algorithms and robots without understanding the actions they take? Why is it that iGen, the group younger than Millennials, is the most digital generation ever, and yet also the least happy? Has mobility paradoxically made us busier instead of less, and less creative instead of more?
Alex Bayen, Professor of Engineering and Director, Institute for Transportation Studies, UC Berkeley
Is Networked GPS Making Traffic Flow Worse?
Marco Della Torre, Chief Technology Officer, Derive Systems
Designing Intelligence for the 270M Vehicles Already on Our Roads Today
Maja Matarić, Computer Science, Neuroscience, and Pediatrics, University of Southern California
Providing Care by Facilitating Social Interactions Rather than Automating Physical Tasks
Samantha Kleinberg, Assistant Professor and Head of the Health and AI Lab, Stevens Institute
Healthcare: From Causes to Decisions
Roni Zeiger, MD, Cofounder, Smart Patients
Integrating Health into the Human Workflow
Todd Richmond, Director of Advanced Prototype Development, Institute for Creative Technologies, USC
Designing with Virtual Humans, for Humans
Irmak Sirer, Partner and Data Scientist, Datascope, IDEO
Deep Learning and Image Manipulation
Bret Victor, Researcher, Dynamicland
New Computer Operating Systems for New Interactions
Mustafa Boyvat, Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory and Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering
Battery-Free Robots
Len Kleinrock, TTI/Vanguard Advisory Board
A Few Thoughts on Network Protocols, Past, Present, and Future
Lera Boroditsky, Associate Professor, UCSD
How Language Shapes Thought
Alicia Juarrero, President, VectorAnalytica, Inc.
Constraints that Enable Innovation
Rey Junco, Fellow, Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, Harvard
Predicting Behavior, Personality, and Achievement from Small Online Datasets
Roger McNamee, Partner and Cofounder, Elevation Partners, and Jonathan Taplin, Emeritus Director, Annenberg Innovation Lab, USC
A Conversation About Devices, Addiction, Children, and Happiness
Bo Peng, Partner and Data Scientist, Datascope, IDEO
Redesigning Business Processes for Augmented Intelligence
USC’s Information Sciences Institute and Institute of Creative Technologies
Field trip attendees will experience an event-filled afternoon that will encompass a pair of distinct USC-affiliated research Institutes—ISI and ICT—both in close proximity to the hotel (and LAX).
The first stop will be at the Information Sciences Institute (ISI), part of the Viterbi School of Engineering. ISI is devoted to both theoretical research and applied R&D. Our visit will tap into both components: We will visit the Quantum Computation Center and its DWave computer; DETERLab, the Cyber Defense Technology Experimental Research Lab, which conducts its own research and also hosts 700 nodes available to all-comers wishing to explore cyberthreats and solution strategies; and MOSIS, the Metal Oxide Semiconductor Implementation Service, which democratizes the prototyping- and production-level fabrication of customized integrated circuits by incorporating dozens of customers’ designs on a given wafer at an affordable cost. ISI director Prem Natarajan will also facilitate a panel discussion on artificial intelligence.
And that is only the beginning. The rest of the afternoon will be at the Institute of Creative Technologies (ICT), where DoD-sponsored research in AI, graphics, virtual reality, and narrative comes together in advanced immersive techniques and technologies, with applications tilting toward military training, health therapies, and education. Here we will explore the science and technologies behind the creation of virtual worlds and the artificial humans that inhabit them. One set of tour components will feature data capture and processing required for the creation of both ultrahigh-fidelity and fast-and-good (but not perfect) virtual humans in projects/facilities including the Virtual Human Toolkit, Rapid Avatar, and the Light Stage. A realistic virtual world also requires accurately represented terrain; ICT’s One World Terrain project.
| 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM | Poolside Brunch at the Ritz-Carlton |
| 11:30 AM | Depart hotel to ISI |
| 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM | ISI |
| 2:30 PM - 5:15 PM | ICT (Return to hotel at 5:30 PM) |