Franke Program in Science & the Humanities

Mariano Sigman is one of the most outstanding neuroscientists in the world, with over 150 publications in the most prestigious scientific journals. He is also passionate about experimentation and has worked with magicians, chess masters, musicians, athletes, and visual artists to bring his knowledge of neuroscience to different aspects of human culture and apply it in different contexts. In his conferences, he teaches how the mind works and what lessons we can learn about decision making, leadership, team management, personal development, and creative skills; his presentations always achieve a high level of participation from the audience through experiments and games.

He obtained his degree in physics from the University of Buenos Aires, a PhD in neuroscience in New York; and he did post-doctoral work in cognitive science at the College de France (Paris). In 2016, he was awarded the Pio XI Medal, from the Pontifical Academy of Science, one of the most prestigious prizes in science (shared among others with Stephen Hawking, and several Nobel prize winners). He has also developed an extensive career in popularizing science, which includes TV programs and hundreds of articles published in different news outlets. He is also the author of the bestseller The Secret Life of the Mind.

Registration link

Friday, November 19, 3pm
A talk by Nisheeth Vishnoi, Yale University

Monday, November 22, 5pm
Moderated conversation with Aleksander Madry, Cadence Design Systems Professor of Computing, MIT

Artificial algorithms are increasingly being deployed to inform, endorse, and govern various aspects of today’s society. Their reach includes the domains of hiring, lending, medicine, criminal justice, insurance, allocation of public services, social and business interactions, and the dissemination of information and news. Through a synthesis of computational and statistical models for representing concepts, human-generated datasets that provide examples for training, and powerful optimization algorithms that can efficiently navigate through vast and complex landscapes to infer concepts that explain data, such algorithms have taken big strides towards mimicking various aspects of natural intelligence. 

These algorithms have led to tremendous economic and social impact but have also been shown to be biased – they can discriminate, reinforce prejudices, polarize opinions, and influence political processes. How can subjective human or societal biases emerge in the objective world of artificial algorithms? And how can we design algorithms free from these limitations?

The search for answers to these questions also leads us to some understanding of the bias in human decision-making algorithms.

Register in advance for this webinar and the post-talk conversation
Poster

YQI/Franke Nontechnical Talk Series

Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky is an acclaimed visual artist and composer who joined the Yale Quantum Institute as Artist-in-Residence for this academic year. For this public talk, he will talk about his multimedia, multidisciplinary study of Antarctica, which was named by ancient Greeks without visiting either pole. This will inform his discussion on how the power of the invisible shapes and molds the visible.

Sponsored by Yale Quantum Institute and Franke Program in Science and the Humanities
PLEASE REGISTER TO RECEIVE THE ZOOM LINK
This is a hybrid event, but those who wish to attend in person should follow this link: https://quantuminstitute.yale.edu/register-attend-paul-millers-talk

Understanding the Nature of Inference: Correlation and Causation Colloquium Series

There has been an enormous burgeoning of interest in causation across the sciences. One can open up a journal in microbiology and be assailed with detailed models of  the causal structure of cells and proteins. One can find textbooks on the increasing array of computational tools for causal search and discovery and take classes devoted to formal methods in causal modeling. Psychologists are unraveling new details about how people use causal concepts in reasoning.

While details of these kinds are in abundant supply, it remains a contested question what causation is and how it fits into a physics-based ontology.

In this talk, Professor Ismael will assemble the pieces of emerging scientific understanding of causation into an account of where (and how) causation arises in the architecture of the cosmos, with special attention to the contested questions of where the direction of causation comes from and its relationship agency.

Saturday, September 25
Moderated conversation with James Woodward, University of Pittsburgh

Sponsored by the Franke Program in Science and the Humanities, John Templeton Foundation
Registration link for both events
Poster

When MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini discovers that many facial recognition technologies misclassify women and darker-skinned faces, she delves into an investigation of widespread bias in algorithms.

Immediately following the screening, Professor Elisa Celis will moderate a discussion with the filmmaker, Shalini Kantayya.

Sponsored by the Franke Program in Science and the Humanities
Registration link
Poster

4:00 pm, Zoom EST