Publications

Perspectives on Robotic Systems for the Visually Impaired.
Christopher Yee Wong
Rahatul Amin Ananto
Tanaka Akiyama
Joseph Paul Nemargut
AJung Moon
Many roboticists hope to build robots and develop technologies that would one day help vulnerable populations to improve their quality of li… (see more)fe. As there are over 2.2 billion people with visual impairments in the world, this vulnerable population is a prime target for robotic assistants to help. In a discussion with a Certified Orientation and Mobility Specialist, someone who helps individuals with visual impairments navigate and perform daily tasks effectively, some interesting and counterintuitive questions were raised about technological developments, particularly robots. While these devices were meant to help the BVI population, many are, in reality, not practically beneficial. In this article, we highlight certain misconceptions about the BVI population and their needs. We emphasize the mismatch between robotics research and the needs of the individuals with visual impairments, especially from the lens of HRI researchers.
2024-03-10
Companion of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (published)
doi.org
Prioritizing Safeguarding Over Autonomy: Risks of LLM Agents for Science
Xiangru Tang
Qiao Jin
Kunlun Zhu
Tongxin Yuan
Yichi Zhang
Wangchunshu Zhou
Meng Qu
Yilun Zhao
Jian Tang
Zhuosheng Zhang
Arman Cohan
Zhiyong Lu
Mark Gerstein
2024-03-10
ICLR.cc/2024/Workshop/LLMAgents (poster)
openreview.net
openreview.net
Generative Models for Decision Making
Bogdan Mazoure
Lisa Lee
Roberta Raileanu
Yilun Du
Walter Talbott
Katherine Metcalf
R Devon Hjelm
Alexander T Toshev
Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made significant advancements in recent years, particularly with the development of large langua… (see more)ge and diffusion models. These generative models have demonstrated impressive capabilities in various tasks, such as text generation and image and audio synthesis. Concurrently, Reinforcement Learning (RL) has made significant strides in solving complex sequential decision-making problems with the help of external knowledge sources . However, there remains untapped potential in combining generative models with RL algorithms to tackle real-world challenges, particularly to improve sample efficiency of tabula rasa training by introducing priors from related domains such as visual question-answering, image captioning and image generation. This workshop aims to bring together researchers and practitioners from the fields of generative AI and reinforcement learning to explore the latest advances, methodologies, and applications. By fostering collaborations between these two domains, we intend to unlock new opportunities for addressing complex problems that lie at the intersection of both fields.
2024-03-07
ICLR.cc/2024/Workshop_Proposals (published)
openreview.net
openreview.net
Global AI Cultures
Rida Qadri
Fernando Diaz
Arjun Subramonian
Sunipa Dev
Georgina Emma Born
Mary L. Gray
Jessica Quaye
Rachel Bergmann
2024-03-07
ICLR.cc/2024/Workshop_Proposals (published)
openreview.net
openreview.net
Integrating Generative and Experimental Platforms or Biomolecular Design
Cheng-Hao Liu
Jarrid Rector-Brooks
Jason Yim
Soojung Yang
Sidney Lisanza
Francesca-Zhoufan Li
Pranam Chatterjee
Tommi Jaakkola
Regina Barzilay
David Baker
Frances H. Arnold
Yoshua Bengio
2024-03-07
ICLR.cc/2024/Workshop_Proposals (published)
openreview.net
openreview.net
Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning: Fostering the Maturity of ML Applications for Climate Change
Shiva Madadkhani
Olivia Mendivil Ramos
Millie Chapman
Jesse Dunietz
Arthur Ouaknine
David Rolnick
Yoshua Bengio
2024-03-07
ICLR.cc/2024/Workshop_Proposals (published)
openreview.net
openreview.net
Knowledge by omission: the significance of omissions in the 5-choice serial reaction time task
Caroline Vouillac-Mendoza
Audrey Durand
Serge H. Ahmed
Karine Guillem
The 5-choice serial reaction time task (5-CSRTT) is commonly used to assess attention in rodents. Manipulation of this task by decreasing th… (see more)e light stimulus duration is often used to probe attentional capacity and causes a decrease in accuracy and an increase in omissions. However, although a decrease in response accuracy is commonly interpreted as a decrease in attention, it is more difficult to interpret an increase in omissions in terms of attentional performance. Here we present a series of experiments in rats that seeks to investigate the origins of these key behavioral measures of attention in the 5-CSRTT. After an initial training in the 5-CSRTT, rats were tested in a variable stimulus duration procedure to increase task difficulty and probe visual attentional capacity under several specific controlled conditions. We found that response accuracy reflects visuospatial sustained attentional processing, as commonly interpreted, while response omission reflects rats’ ignorance about the stimulus location, presumably due to failure to pay attention to the curved wall during its presentation. Moreover, when rats lack of relevant information, they choose not to respond instead of responding randomly. Overall, our results indicate that response accuracy and response omission thus correspond to two distinct attentional states.
2024-03-05
Psychopharmacology (published)
doi.org
Efficient Causal Graph Discovery Using Large Language Models
Thomas Jiralerspong
Xiaoyin Chen
Yash More
Vedant Shah
Yoshua Bengio
2024-03-04
ICLR.cc/2024/Workshop/AGI (poster)
doi.org
openreview.net
Excitability mediates allocation of pre-configured ensembles to a hippocampal engram supporting contextual conditioned threat in mice
Andrew J. Mocle
Adam I. Ramsaran
Alexander D. Jacob
Asim J. Rashid
Alessandro Luchetti
Lina M. Tran
Blake A. Richards
Paul W. Frankland
Sheena A. Josselyn
2024-03-04
Neuron (published)
doi.org
Explicit Knowledge Factorization Meets In-Context Learning: What Do We Gain?
Sarthak Mittal
Eric Elmoznino
Leo Gagnon
Sangnie Bhardwaj
Dhanya Sridhar
Guillaume Lajoie
2024-03-04
ICLR.cc/2024/Workshop/R2-FM (poster)
openreview.net
openreview.net
Optimisation of quantitative brain diffusion-relaxation MRI acquisition protocols with physics-informed machine learning.
Álvaro Planchuelo-Gómez
Maxime Descoteaux
Hugo Larochelle
Jana Hutter
Derek K. Jones
C. Tax
2024-03-04
Medical Image Analysis (published)
doi.org
Plant invasion in Mediterranean Europe: current hotspots and future scenarios
Luigi Cao Pinna
Laure Gallien
Laura J. Pollock
Irena Axmanová
Milan Chytrý
Marco Malavasi
Alicia T. R. Acosta
Juan Antonio Campos
Marta Carboni
The Mediterranean Basin has historically been subject to alien plant invasions that threaten its unique biodiversity. This seasonally dry an… (see more)d densely populated region is undergoing severe climatic and socioeconomic changes, and it is unclear whether these changes will worsen or mitigate plant invasions. Predictions are often biased, as species may not be in equilibrium in the invaded environment, depending on their invasion stage and ecological characteristics. To address future predictions uncertainty, we identified invasion hotspots across multiple biased modelling scenarios and ecological characteristics of successful invaders. We selected 92 alien plant species widespread in Mediterranean Europe and compiled data on their distribution in the Mediterranean and worldwide. We combined these data with environmental and propagule pressure variables to model global and regional species niches, and map their current and future habitat suitability. We identified invasion hotspots, examined their potential future shifts, and compared the results of different modelling strategies. Finally, we generalised our findings by using linear models to determine the traits and biogeographic features of invaders most likely to benefit from global change. Currently, invasion hotspots are found near ports and coastlines throughout Mediterranean Europe. However, many species occupy only a small portion of the environmental conditions to which they are preadapted, suggesting that their invasion is still an ongoing process. Future conditions will lead to declines in many currently widespread aliens, which will tend to move to higher elevations and latitudes. Our trait models indicate that future climates will generally favour species with conservative ecological strategies that can cope with reduced water availability, such as those with short stature and low specific leaf area. Taken together, our results suggest that in future environments, these conservative aliens will move farther from the introduction areas and upslope, threatening mountain ecosystems that have been spared from invasions so far.
2024-03-04
Ecography (published)
doi.org