Abstract: Recent work in NLP uses debates between multiple LLMs to arrive at a more accurate conclusion. Earlier chain-of-thought prompting also shows improvements in accuracy when the model is asked to provide step-by-step reasoning in its response. Many publications since have developed strategies to improve the reasoning of model output with the goal of generating a more accurate result. However, even when asked to provide problem solving steps, the content of the reasoning provided by models is not well studied for all tasks and sometimes contains errors or conflicting statements even when the final result is correct. In fact, when evaluated across reasoning tasks, evidence shows that LLMs are not learning how to reason but are instead mimicking relevant solutions from their training sets.
By studying and evaluating the argumentation that LLMs provide, we can determine factors that may benefit or hinder the model's ability to give a complete, cohesive, and thorough answer. While there are signs that LLMs pattern match, finding where, when, and why this fails is valuable, as there may be ways to help the model imitate solutions that are more relevant to the task it is attempting to solve. Determining when pattern matching is not enough could show an area of improvement for future generations of LLMs. This research may separately aid in work on human-(AI)agent and inter-agent interaction. Specifically, frameworks could be used to determine when and why other models or humans are convinced by LLM-generated responses and which argument methods cause other models to change their response. Our current research in systematic versus heuristic cues shows that large language models sometimes present systematic or heuristic reasoning patterns based on prompting. Future research aims to explore other methods of classifying argumentation.

Speaker: Kiera Gross

Joining link: https://meet.google.com/xae-ywpv-udo
AI/ML Working Group Seminar

Time/Date: 12:00 PM ET, Tuesday, March 1st, 2022

Seminar Speaker: Yen-Chi (Sam) Chen, CSI, Brookhaven National Laboratory

Title: When reinforcement learning meets quantum computing

Abstract: Recently, reinforcement learning (RL) has demonstrated
various applications with superhuman performance such as mastering the
game of Go.  Meanwhile, the development of quantum computing hardware
shed light on building practical quantum applications to tackle
previously unsolved problems. What will happen if we combine these two
fascinating techniques? In this talk, I will present the recent
progress in quantum RL as well as using classical RL to help certain
tasks in quantum computing.



Host: Meifeng Lin, Computational Science Initiative

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AI on Campus: Your Thoughts, Your Future

Join the Conversation: Share Your Thoughts about Learning, Academics, and AI

The world of college is changing fast, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is at the center of it. We are part of the Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum with AAC&U, and we need to hear from the people AI affects most: you!

This is an open discussion for all students to share their honest experiences, their top concerns, and their best ideas about AI in our academic environment. We'll be diving into these key questions:

  • How can AI actually make learning better or easier? What opportunities do you see for using AI tools to enhance your assignments, research, or skills?

  • What are your biggest worries about AI? Is it about cheating, being graded fairly, or preparing for the job market? How is AI impacting your workload or stress levels?

  • What specific tools, workshops, or policies would help you use AI responsibly and successfully? (Think training, software, or clear rules.)

Dates/Times:

  • Wednesday, 2/4 at 2pm

  • Thursday, 2/5 at 12pm

Please register in advance for the Zoom link.

Can't Make It? Share Your Feedback!

Don't worry if you can't attend! You can still share your thoughts via video in our AI Zoom Room or via email: rose.tirotta-esposito@stonybrook.edu.

Videos will not be shared publicly and comments will only be shared in aggregate.

Your voice matters. Come tell us how AI is affecting your studies, your stress, and your success!

  • Dr. Rose Tirotta-Esposito (Assistant Provost; Director of CELT)

  • Dr. Elizabeth Hewitt (Associate Professor in the Department of Technology and Society (DTS) in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences)

  • Chris Kretz (Associate Librarian and Head of Academic Engagement at SBU Libraries)

  • Prof. Rajiv Lajmi (Assistant Professor in the School of Health Professions and Chair of Applied Health Informatics)

  • Dr. Matthew Salzano (Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication in the School of Communication and Journalism)

Abstract: Sea ice is crucial to Earth's climate, Arctic communities, and ecosystems, yet climate change is driving significant losses, threatening polar stability. Quantifying the long-term impacts of a declining sea ice cover requires tools which improve climate-timescale prediction and bring new understanding of climate interactions. In this talk, I discuss how meeting this challenge requires a multi-disciplinary approach. Climate models, while essential, suffer from systematic biases due to missing or inaccurate physics, leading to uncertainty in future projections. I show how data assimilation (DA) offers a statistical framework for integrating satellite observations with climate models to quantify systematic sea ice model errors. Using convolutional neural networks (CNNs), we can learn these errors based on the model's atmospheric, oceanic, and sea ice conditions--what I term a state-dependent representation of the error. This approach enables real-time corrections to subsequent model simulations, which systematically reduces global sea ice biases. I highlight key successes and challenges in developing this hybrid ML+climate modeling framework, including transfer learning to enhance online generalization of ML models, and new methods for integrating Python-based ML frameworks with Fortran climate model code. Finally, I introduce GPSat, a scalable Gaussian process-based tool for reconstructing complete sea ice fields from sparse satellite altimetry data. Together, the DA+ML framework and GPSat offer future opportunities for improving targeted model physics errors for more robust climate simulation.


IACS Seminar Speaker: William Gregory, Princeton University

Location: IACS Seminar Room
Defending Software Systems from Cyber Attack Campaigns Presented by R. Sekar The DNC hack of 2016, the Equifax breach of 2017, and the spate of ransomware campaigns in 2019 demonstrate the formidable challenges we face in securing our network and software systems against highly stealthy and sophisticated adversaries. In this talk, I will describe two avenues of research we have been pursuing to help tilt the table against such powerful adversaries. The first is software hardening techniques that make software vulnerabilities harder to exploit. To maximize their applicability and ease of use, our techniques are implemented into compilers, or they directly transform binary code. I will outline some of the exciting new developments we have had in this area over the years, including randomization, memory safety, information-flow tracking, control-flow integrity, and code-pointer integrity. We complement this first line of defense with techniques for analyzing and understanding attack campaigns that manage to slip past all deployed defenses. Our techniques can sift through logs consisting of hundreds of millions of events to zoom in on attack activity that may span just a few hundred events. I will describe our experience in mapping out several DARPA-sponsored red team attack campaigns.

Join Klaus Mueller, professor of computer science and interim chair of the Department of Technology and Society, as he hosts Sucheta Lahiri.

Lahiri leads the AI Ethics and Risk Management function at Oxy, where she is responsible for ensuring that the company's AI solutions are developed and deployed in a manner that is ethical, efficient, trustworthy, safe, sustainable, and human-centered. She holds a doctorate from Syracuse University, along with two master's degrees in Applied Statistics and Information Science earned in India.

Zoom: https://stonybrook.zoom.us/j/7851507944?omn=98268154363#success

IACS Research Theme: Human Centered Computing Seminar

Abstract: The AI art platform Artbreeder hosts daily remix parties where users build on each other's work, creating transparent evolutionary chains of images from a single seed. This study analyzes 130,882 images from 368 remix parties to identify the drivers of novelty, complexity, and competitive success. The results reveal an interesting tension: while more novel parent images produce more novel and complex children and attract more likes, users paradoxically prefer to remix images that are less novel and complex. At the group level, larger remix parties produce more novelty at the cost of lower complexity. Additionally, images tend to converge towards common thematic attractors (e.g., steampunk scenes, alien architecture, furries) over the course of remix parties. These results provide quantitative insights into collective creativity--the production of novelty by groups of people--a typically opaque aspect of human cultural evolution.

Speaker: Dr. Mason Youngblood

Location: Institute for Advanced Computational Science, Seminar Room