What happens when biological and artificial intelligence meet?
Since its launch in 2022 as a multiyear project funded by the Incubator for Transdisciplinary Futures, Toward a Synergy Between Artificial Intelligence and Neuroscience has explored the intersections between the human brain and the novel AI networks that seek to emulate its functions.
On May 15, that work culminated in the NeuroAI Symposium, an all-day event that featured an international coterie of scholars and scientists who work on the cutting edge of AI and neuroscience research.
Ralf Wessel, PhD, a Washington University professor of physics and one of the faculty leads for the AI and Neuroscience project, summed up the symposium’s ambitious agenda as he welcomed attendees to a packed second-floor classroom in Crow Hall.
“The most exciting thing about today is the range of topics within NeuroAI,” Wessel said, “from a single neuron’s activity all the way up to creativity. To do this all in one day is pretty cool.”
Presenters included representatives from Harvard Medical School, Reality Labs at Meta, and MIT, as well as speakers visiting or Zooming in from institutions in Canada, Finland, and Switzerland. The speaker lineup featured a fascinating mix of researchers from academia and industry – or some, such as opening speaker Patrick Mineault, who have moved fluidly between both worlds.