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Q&A collaborative effort between Brown University machine intelligence becomes more powerful than human intelligence? and Rhode Island Hospital, and will go for two I believe some of those claims are overblown. years, with the potential for extending it two I don’t disagree that there is a debate to be had more years. I am very excited by this project about artificial intelligence, but I think we’re far because I believe it represents an opportunity from technological singularity. The project started in September as a Q&A with OSHEANCon19 Keynote Speaker: Thomas Serre Thomas Serre is a computational neuroscientist specializing in visual processing, and an associate professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences at Brown University and an affiliate of the Carney institute for Brain Science. Ahead of his keynote speech at OSHEANCon19, Dr. Serre spoke to us about his groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence (AI), neuroscience and computer vision. News recently broke about a $6.3-million DARPA-funded project that you’re involved with. Can you tell us about the work being done with that group? This is a high-risk, high-reward project led by Professor to expand the limits of AI and the knowledge we have of neural circuits. Communication between brains and computers is not completely impossible, but we are pretty How long have you been teaching at Brown far away from achieving that. I also think we are University? very far from AI taking control of humankind. I’ve been at Brown University for almost 10 I feel we’re at a similar turning point as the years, although I’ve been on sabbatical since turn of the Industrial Revolution, when more the spring. I’m actively working to promote automated machinery changed the way manual the use of computational methods within labor was used. biological sciences. I am the Faculty Director for the Center for Computation and There are important questions to be asked such Visualization and the Associate Director for as what are the main changes we will see in the Computation in Brain and Mind Initiative the economy, how will education change, etc. within the Carney Institute for Brain Science. The concern at this point is not AI taking over I’m also involved in the Artificial and Natural humans, but ensuring that we are adequately Intelligence Toulouse Institute (ANITI) in prepared for the next big revolution. France, where I was awarded an International Chair in AI. I am working to demonstrate that neuroscience is a good source of inspiration for those entrenched in AI. Can you share what you plan to talk about at OSHEANCon? I’m looking forward to sharing the amazing amount of progress that has taken place in David Borton. It involves the development and testing of an “intelligent spinal interface” aimed at helping to restore limb I try to promote my passions around computer vision powered by modern deep movement and bladder control for people who have suffered neuroscience, machine learning, computational neural networks. To that end, I plan to highlight spinal cord injuries. The idea is to record signals traveling modeling, machine and biological vision, and how progress in the field has taken shape in the down the spinal cord above an injury site and use them to AI in the two courses I teach per year to my past decade. I’ll also demonstrate how it is now drive electrical spinal stimulation below the lesion. At the students. possible for computer vision algorithms to outperform humans in some tasks. same time, information coming up the cord from below will be used to drive stimulation above the injury. The device could potentially help to restore both volitional control of limb muscles as well as feeling and sensation lost due What do you have to say to people who are concerned with the prospect of what is called “technological singularity”—the point when I am also planning to highlight the many limitations of modern computer vision to injury. 24 | 2019 eCURRENT Stronger Together | 25