MTS is the department’s Mind, Technology, and Society speaker series. It is hosted by a different faculty member each semester. Founded by a generous gift from Professors Robert Glushko and Pamela Samuelson, MTS brings researchers and industry professionals from across the globe to present a variety of interdisciplinary work in cognitive science. See our UCMerced CogSci youtube channel for videos of past MTS talks!
CIS graduate students, faculty, and staff, and all who are interested are invited! Members of other departments at UC Merced as well as the general public are encouraged to attend. (Note: current CIS Ph.D. students are required to attend MTS each semester in residence, to fulfill their COGS 250 course requirement).
Dr. Adolfo Ramirez-Aristizabal's talk "Foundation Models for Biosensing Data: An Emerging Trend moving Beyond Text and into Multimodal Precision Human Data" will be from 2-3:30pm in SSM 104
Abstract: The advent of LLMs, via large text user data processing and modeling, has been at the center of the disruptive waves of AI systems development and engineering innovation. The hyper focus of investment in these technologies has also triggered considerations of the political economy of AI, redefining Human-AI technology interactions, and enticed academics across disciplines to define their own perspectives on the ‘mind’ and ‘intelligence’ which often veers towards provocative technological futurist talking points.
In my own work at Accenture Labs, I have specialized my involvement at the intersection between Human-AI Interactions, Biosensing, and Novel AI systems research. Here in my presentation, I will introduce an emerging trend around foundation models for biosensing data. The goal is to start a conversation around what considerations for industry products/services applications this introduces and how a different phase in AI research & development either changes or doesn’t change how we talk about and define the mind.
Bio: Adolfo Ramirez-Aristizabal is a Research & Development Principal in Accenture Labs San Francisco. He is both an undergraduate and graduate school alumnus from UC Merced with a degree in Cognitive & Information Sciences, now working at the intersection of multimodal human data and novel AI systems. Such a role in Accenture Labs has allowed for an eclectic mix of work involving being the lead inventor for patents, interfacing with start-ups, collaborating with universities, doing engineering work for well-known tech clients, and thought leadership bridging academia with applied enterprise use cases.
For more information or to sign up for email announcements, please contact the talk series organizer: cis-mts-lead@lists.ucmerced.edu.
