On Wednesday, May 24, at 7:30 p.m. PDT in Beckman Auditorium on the Caltech campus, Yaser Abu-Mostafa (PhD '83), professor of electrical engineering and computer science, will cap the 100th anniversary season of the Earnest C. Watson Lecture Series with "Artificial Intelligence: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."
ChatGPT has rocked the general public's perception and expectations of artificial intelligence (AI). In this lecture, Abu-Mostafa will explain the science of AI in plain language and explore how the scientific details illustrate the risks and benefits of AI. Between the extremes of "AI will kill us all" and "AI will solve all our problems," the science can help us identify what is realistic and what is speculative, and guide us in our planning, legislation, and investment in AI.
"I want people to understand what artificial intelligence is in concrete terms and have a realistic assessment of the state of the field: what it has done, what it can do, what we are afraid of, what we are unjustifiably afraid of, and so on," says Abu-Mostafa, who is a pioneer of AI, machine learning (ML), and computational finance research. "Humans are still the intelligent entity. So, there is immediately a feeling of competition, but it is really collaboration not competition. We are just unloading some of the routine tasks that, although they require some intelligence, are boring."
Abu-Mostafa earned a bachelor's from Cairo University in his home country of Egypt. He received a master's degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a doctoral degree from Caltech, where he won the Clauser Prize for the most original doctoral thesis. After graduating in 1983, Abu-Mostafa joined the faculty of the Institute, first as the Garrett Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering, and then as an assistant professor later that year. His current work is focused on the use of AI and ML techniques to develop medical applications, like noninvasive technology that can detect mini clots in the bloodstream for stroke prediction.
The 2022–23 season marks the centennial of The Earnest C. Watson Lecture Series, which has brought Caltech's most innovative scientific research to the public since the Friday Evening Demonstration Lectures premiered in October 1922. The series is named for Earnest C. Watson, a professor of physics at Caltech from 1919 until 1959.
The Watson Lectures, which are geared toward a general audience, spotlight a selection of the pioneering research conducted by Caltech's faculty as part of the Institute's ongoing commitment to benefiting the local community through education and outreach. All Watson Lectures are free and open to the public.
Many past Watson Lectures are available on YouTube.
No advance registration is required for the Watson Lectures, but you may sign up for event reminders here.
For more information, please contact the Caltech Ticket Office by email at events@caltech.edu.
Written by Katie Neith