Syntience Video Page

Bay Area Future Salon

These are typically held third Thursday of the month.

Small (dial-up) Large (broadband) Description

Science Beyond Reductionism
Monica Anderson discusses the ongoing paradigm shift - the "Holistic Shift" - which started in the life sciences and is spreading to the remaining disciplines. Model Free Methods (also known as Holistic Methods) are an increasingly common approach used on "the remaining hard problems", including problems in the domain of "AI" - Problems that require intelligence. She illustrates this using a Model Free approach to the NetFlix Challenge. Her website provides some background information.

Small (dial-up)	Large (broadband)	Description
		Science Beyond Reductionism Monica Anderson discusses the ongoing paradigm shift - the "Holistic Shift" - which started in the life sciences and is spreading to the remaining disciplines. Model Free Methods (also known as Holistic Methods) are an increasingly common approach used on "the remaining hard problems", including problems in the domain of "AI" - Problems that require intelligence. She illustrates this using a Model Free approach to the NetFlix Challenge. Her website provides some background information.

Bay Area Artificial Intelligence Meetup

AI Meetups happen on second and fourth Sundays each month at noon and last for two hours. People interested in Artificial Intelligence, both amateurs and professionals in the field, will meet at the TechShop in Menlo Park. Most meetups feature a presentation by a group member or by an invited speaker. This is followed by a discussion that often centers on the presentation but can really be about any AI related topic.

The meetings are always free and open to the public. For details, see their main page at ai-meetup.org or their calendar at ai-meetup.org/calendar

Some of these meetups have been video recorded and will be made accessible through this page as they finish postproduction.

Holistic Salons

Holistic Salons are a series of AI MeetUps featuring talks by Monica Anderson about her research (especially Artificial Intuition) and its philosophical foundations.
Initially these were held salon-style in her home but as their popularity grew they were made part of the AI MeetUps.

Small (dial-up) Large (broadband) Description

A New Direction In AI Research
Monica Anderson proposes adding a new target to ongoing AI research efforts: We need to focus more of our attention on Understanding as opposed to Reasoning. Understanding requires using Model Free Methods. As a bonus towards the end, Ms. Anderson also speculates about the so-called AI singularity and discusses whether SkyNet like scenarios, where computers take over the world, are plausible.

Bizarre Systems
Reductionist methods have failed and will always fail on problems in "Bizarre Domains" - domains where Reductionist models cannot be created or used. Examples include modeling significant parts of the world we live in, many problems in the Life Sciences, analyzing organisms including human physiology, drug interactions, etc., the global economy and stock markets, analyzing the brain, creating an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), and the semantics of text.

Models versus Patterns
This video attempts to clarify the distinction between Reductionist Models and Holistic Patterns - central concepts in Monica Anderson's theory about "Artificial Intuition". Reductionist Models cannot be created or used in Bizarre Domains, but Model Free Methods can be used everywhere. The initial part of this talk repeats some introductory material from the first tak above; the new material starts around 8:50.

Other AI MeetUps

Small (dial-up)	Large (broadband)	Description
		Peter Norvig: Models and Theories Dr. Peter Norvig is Director of Research at Google Inc. He is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery and the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and co-author of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, the leading textbook in the field. Previously he was head of Computational Sciences at NASA and a faculty member at USC and Berkeley. In this talk he discusses, among other things, how non-parametric models can be applied to vision and language problems in data-rich environments.
		Jamais Cascio: Cascio's Laws of Robotics Jamais Cascio writes at OpenTheFuture.com about the intersection of emerging technologies, environmental dilemmas, and cultural transformation, specializing in the design and creation of plausible scenarios of the future. His work focuses on the importance of long-term, systemic thinking, emphasizing the power of openness, transparency and flexibility as catalysts for building a more resilient society.
		Bob Blum: Consciousness - What, Who, When, and Why Bob Blum, MD, PhD examines consciousness and the four basic questions: What is the definition of consciousness? Who is conscious? When did it evolve? And Why did it evolve?

Small (dial-up)	Large (broadband)	Description
		A New Direction In AI Research Monica Anderson proposes adding a new target to ongoing AI research efforts: We need to focus more of our attention on Understanding as opposed to Reasoning. Understanding requires using Model Free Methods. As a bonus towards the end, Ms. Anderson also speculates about the so-called AI singularity and discusses whether SkyNet like scenarios, where computers take over the world, are plausible.
		Bizarre Systems Reductionist methods have failed and will always fail on problems in "Bizarre Domains" - domains where Reductionist models cannot be created or used. Examples include modeling significant parts of the world we live in, many problems in the Life Sciences, analyzing organisms including human physiology, drug interactions, etc., the global economy and stock markets, analyzing the brain, creating an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), and the semantics of text.
		Models versus Patterns This video attempts to clarify the distinction between Reductionist Models and Holistic Patterns - central concepts in Monica Anderson's theory about "Artificial Intuition". Reductionist Models cannot be created or used in Bizarre Domains, but Model Free Methods can be used everywhere. The initial part of this talk repeats some introductory material from the first tak above; the new material starts around 8:50.

Syntience Video Page

Bay Area Future Salon

Science Beyond Reductionism

Bay Area Artificial Intelligence Meetup

Holistic Salons

A New Direction In AI Research

Bizarre Systems

Models versus Patterns

Other AI MeetUps

Peter Norvig: Models and Theories

Jamais Cascio: Cascio's Laws of Robotics

Bob Blum: Consciousness - What, Who, When, and Why