The Program in Writing and Rhetoric
Invites you to
A Rhetorical/Deliberative Framework for AI Language Model Alignment
featuring
Prof Zoltan Majdik Professor
North Dakota State University
In this talk, Prof. Majdik proposes a framework for aligning LLMs with values grounded in the norms of rhetorical culture and deliberative democracy. Alongside long-standing AI alignment value targets like safety and transparency, this AI alignment framework assesses to what extent a language model exhibits human and humane values that foster communicative engagement, and it codifies approaches to tuning existing models to better align with such values.

Location: Humanities 1008
Abstract: Machine learning (ML) systems fueled by neural networks have entered our daily lives and led to scientific breakthroughs, but many open questions remain. After a nod toward the question of rigor with ML and recent progress, I'll turn to the theory of neural networks. I will argue that understanding neural networks inevitably leads to ideas from field theory (FT), which was already realized in the simplest case in the 1990s, and I will review some essential FT-for-NN results. I will then propose that the connection might be more general, an NN-FT correspondence of sorts, with neural networks providing a way to define a field theory. I'll end with comments on known results including the origin of interactions and various symmetries, but I will also list some open questions. The apparent non-sequitur in the title will be used as a rhetorical device to explore where we are and where we'd like to go.

https://scgp.stonybrook.edu/calendar/full-calendar
Abstract: Language offers a uniquely powerful lens for understanding the mind: one that can access latent psychological realities often missed by traditional measurement tools. However, as language models expand their ability to capture semantics through context length, expansion into deeper levels of semantics is less explored, especially with respect to understanding cognitive patterns of authors. This dissertation proposes that we can uncover deeper cognitive and affective patterns that reflect more accurate underlying mental states by analyzing language at higher levels of discourse semantics and by modeling latent states.


First, the dissertation focuses on uncovering cognitive styles or thinking patterns manifesting in language. We demonstrate that modeling language at deeper semantic levels such as discourse relations, can unveil latent psychological states and traits, including cognitive styles that influence both mental health and behavior. Introducing a novel blend of transfer and active learning, we efficiently curated a new set of linguistic data on cognitive styles like dissonance. This approach allows for more precise measurement when dealing with rare-classes and low-resource tasks. As a second contribution, effective validation methods are introduced to language-based assessments of the underlying cognitive styles. Controlled behavioral experiments and online studies show that cognitive styles detected through linguistic signals reliably predict real-world behaviors such as decision-making and engagement with extremist communities, both at the individual and community levels, sometimes months in advance

The research further moves beyond traditional measurement tools like questionnaires and expert judgments, which rely on Classical Test Theory, by establishing that language-based assessments more closely approximate true psychological states. The mechanisms by which these assessments outperform standard tools are explained, highlighting their predictive power for behaviors linked to underlying traits. Finally, a more sophisticated approach is explored by modeling psychological outcomes with Item Response Theory (IRT), an improvement over Classical Test Theory. Adaptive language-based assessments are introduced, showing that targeted, adaptive testing based on latent IRT scores can efficiently and accurately capture multiple psychological dimensions.

Taken together, these contributions argue for a shift towards language-based psychological assessments. By integrating deeper discourse-level semantics with measurement theory, this dissertation charts a path towards truer scores of mental states: ones that are more precise, and reflective of the complexity of human cognition and emotions.

Speaker: Vasudha Varadarajan

https://stonybrook.zoom.us/j/99180374682?pwd=w2zZTkQsfunrBZhHgEweR54NjKabZ2.1&jst=2
The IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition 2025 will be held from June 11th to June 15th, 2025, at the Music City Center, Nashville, TN. The IEEE / CVF Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference (CVPR) is the premier annual computer vision event comprising the main conference and several co-located workshops and short courses. With its high quality and low cost, it provides an exceptional value for students, academics and industry researchers. Register here.
Artificial Intelligence is rapidly reshaping research, education, and industry--but its growth carries important environmental implications. From the energy demands of large-scale computing to AI's potential to advance climate modeling, conservation, and sustainable design, the relationship between AI and the environment is both challenging and promising. This interdisciplinary panel explores AI's ecological footprint, its role in environmental solutions, and how universities can pursue innovation while upholding sustainability commitments.

Panelists:
Dana Golden -- PhD student in Economics, Stony Brook University.
Dr. Sharon Pochron -- Associate Professor in Sustainability Studies Program, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Stony Brook University.
Dr. Jordanna Sprayberry -- Associate Professor, Ecology & Evolution, Director of Undergraduate Biology, Stony Brook University.
Dr. Lav Varshney -- Director of the Artificial Intelligence Innovation Institute (AI3) and inaugural Della Pietra Infinity Chair, Stony Brook University.

Register here.
18th Annual Engineering Ball Flowerfield, St. James, NY Thursday April, 2nd, 7:00 to 10:00 pm Pick up your tickets in 231 Engineering (Monday - Friday, 10:00 am to 4 pm) Presenting Partner: L3Harris
University Libraries Presents: The Library AI Club is a welcoming space for students, faculty, and staff to explore AI in a supportive, low-pressure environment. Meeting every two weeks, the club features discussions, collaborative projects, guest speakers, and hands-on experiments. Join us to learn, share ideas, and engage with AI responsibly and creatively. We'd love to see you at an upcoming meeting! Location: Melville Library, Scholarly Communication Seminar Room
Abstract: DeepSeek-R1-Zero has shown that reinforcement learning (RL) at scale can directly enhance the reasoning capabilities of LLMs without supervised fine-tuning. In this work, we critically examine R1-Zero-like training by analyzing its two core components: base models and RL. We investigate a wide range of base models, including DeepSeek-V3-Base, to understand how pretraining characteristics influence RL performance. Our analysis reveals that DeepSeek-V3-Base already exhibit ''Aha moment'', while Qwen2.5 base models demonstrate strong reasoning capabilities even without prompt templates, suggesting potential pretraining biases. Additionally, we identify an optimization bias in Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO), which artificially increases response length (especially for incorrect outputs) during training. To address this, we introduce Dr. GRPO, an unbiased optimization method that improves token efficiency while maintaining reasoning performance. Leveraging these insights, we present a minimalist R1-Zero recipe that achieves 43.3% accuracy on AIME 2024 with a 7B base model, establishing a new state-of-the-art.

Speaker: Md. Saqib Hasan

Location: CS2311
Title: AI-Driven Target Selection Methods for Touch and Gaze Input

Abstract: Accurately selecting targets is an essential aspect of  Human-Computer Interaction. Erroneous selections can cause tedious undo and redo actions. Additionally, some selection errors are non-reversible and can lead to undesirable consequences. However, high-accuracy target selection remains a challenge on touchscreen devices due to the small target size and imprecise touch inputs, and in gaze interaction because of the gaze tracking noise and no easy-to-use selection action. We first propose ReLM, a Reinforcement Learning-based Method for touchscreen target selection. ReLM can automatically show suggestions and require a second touch if the input is ambiguous, and can directly select a target candidate when the input is certain. Our empirical evaluation shows that ReLM reduces the error rate from 6.92% to 1.63%, and the selection time from 2.23s to 1.59s over Shift, an existing suggestion-based method. Compared to BayesianCommand, a direct selection-based method, our ReLM reduces the error rate from 3.64% to 0.89%, while increasing the selection time by only 200 ms. Secondly, we investigate how to improve target selection performance for gaze interaction. We propose BayesGaze, an eye-gaze based target selection method. It accumulates the signal of each gaze point for selecting a target calculated by Bayes Theorem, and uses a threshold mechanism to determine the target selection. Our investigation shows that BayesGaze improves target selection accuracy and speed over a dwell-based selection method, and the Center of Gravity Mapping method.

All are welcome. Here  is the zoom meeting link:
https://stonybrook.zoom.us/j/93130953411?pwd=Rm5IRlVPQ3M0cHJsTXpCVFljUlFGUT09Meeting ID: 931 3095 3411Passcode: 999413