Seminar: AI-augmented algorithms — how I learned to stop worrying and love choice

The speaker is Lars Kotthoff, previously a PhD student here, now and Assistant Professor at the University of Wyoming. All welcome.

 

Often, there is more than one way to solve a problem. It could be a different
parameter setting, a different piece of software, or an entirely different
approach. Choosing the best way is usually a difficult task, even for experts.
AI and machine learning allow to leverage performance differences of
algorithms (for a wide definition of “algorithm”) on different problems and
choose the best algorithm for a given problem automatically. In AI itself,
these techniques have redefined the state of the art in several areas and led
to innovative approaches to solving challenging problems.

In this talk, I will give examples of how AI can help to solve challenging
computational problems, what techniques have been applied, and how you can do
the same. I will argue that AI has fundamental implications for software
development, engineering, and computer science in general — stop making
decisions when coding, having more algorithmic choices is better!