Thanks to a December 10, 2024 University of British Columbia (UBC) media advisory (also received via email) for information about a ‘big deal’ conference being held here in Vancouver and about some of the UBC experts attending it, Note: Links have been removed,

NeurIPS, one of the leading conferences in machine learning and artificial intelligence research, kicks off in Vancouver this week. UBC experts, including researchers presenting new papers at the conference, are available to comment on related topics.

Dr. Xiaoxiao Li, an assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering, specializes in building trust in AI and advancing its use in healthcare. Dr. Li will present three papers at NeurIPS.

What does responsible AI look like?

Responsible AI is about building AI we can trust—AI that is fair, transparent and helpful. For example, a responsible healthcare app not only explains why it makes a diagnosis or treatment recommendation but also strives to minimize bias to serve diverse populations better, while keeping personal data secure. Ultimately, responsible AI serves humanity ethically, safely and inclusively.

Dr. Cong Lu, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of computer science, focuses on deep reinforcement learning, open-ended learning, and AI for science. Dr. Lu will be presenting two papers at the conference.

What role will AI play in scientific discovery?

Recent advances like ‘The AI Scientist’ have shown progress towards automating the entire scientific pipeline – generating hypotheses, conducting experiments and drafting papers. But what will it take to bridge the gap between this supporting role and groundbreaking contributions that, for now, are in the domain of human scientists?

Dr. Kwang Moo Yi, an assistant professor in the department of computer science, researches 3D computer vision.

What does AI literacy mean to the general public?

AI literacy is as essential as AI’s use and advancement are inevitable, creating a divide between those who use it effectively and those left behind. Knowledge unlocks potential, but equitable solutions ensure everyone benefits, preventing societal gaps as technology reshapes opportunities and capabilities. This answer was also written quickly given keywords via AI, much faster than what I would’ve been able to alone. 

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Given how much money is swirling around this conference, the NeurIPS 2024 website is a very bare bones site. As for my contention regarding money, let’s take a look at the organizing committee, Note 1: GSK until 2022 was known as GlaxoSmithKline, a British multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company; Note 2: The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is a philanthropic effort funded by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan

Organizing Committee

General Chairs

Amir Globerson (Google, Tel Aviv University)
Lester Mackey (Microsoft Research)

Senior Program Chair

Danielle Belgrave (GSK.ai)

Program Chairs

Angela Fan (Meta)
Ulrich Paquet (Google DeepMind; AIMS South Africa)
Jakub Tomczak (Eindhoven Uni. of Technology &amp [sic]; Chan Zuckerberg Initiative)
Cheng Zhang (GenAI, Meta)

Program Chair Assistants

Stefan Groha (GSK.ai)
Max Horn (GSK.ai)
Francois Meyer (University of Cape Town)
Babak Rahmani (Microsoft Research)
Caroline Weis (gsk.ai)

Workshop Chairs

Bo Han (HKBU / RIKEN)
Manuel Rodriguez (Max Planck Institute for Software Systems)
Adil Salim (Microsoft Research)
Rose Yu (UC San Diego)

Workshop Chair Assistants

Bo Zhao (University of California San Diego)
Jianing Zhu (HKBU)

Tutorial Chairs

Gal Chechik (NVIDIA, Bar-Ilan University)
Irene Chen (UC Berkeley)
Andrew Dai (Google)

Competition Chairs

Jake Albrecht (Bristol Myers Squibb)
Tao Qin (Microsoft Research AI4Science)
Megan Yates (Zindi)

Data and Benchmark Chairs

Lora Aroyo (Google Research)
Francesco Locatello (ISTA)
Lingjuan Lyu (Sony AI)

Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility Chairs

Isabel Valera (Saarland University, Saarbrücken)
William Yang Wang (University of California, Santa Barbara)

Affinity Chairs

Ioana Bica (Google DeepMind)
Nezihe Merve Gürel

Ethics Review Chairs

Jiahao Chen (New York City Office of Technology and Innovation)
Himabindu Lakkaraju (Harvard)

Communication Chairs

Ehsan Adeli (Stanford University)
Yali Du (King's [sic] College London)
Alex X Lu (Microsoft Research)

Social Chair

Hendrik Strobelt (IBM Research / MIT-IBM Ai Lab)

Journal Chair

Lam Nguyen (IBM Research, Thomas J. Watson Research Center)

Creative AI Chairs

Marcelo Coelho (MIT)
Jean Oh (CMU)

Workflow Manager

Zhenyu (Sherry) Xue (NeurIPS Foundation)

Logistics and ITs

Terri Auricchio (NeurIPS Staff)
Brad Brockmeyer (NeurIPS Staff)
Lee Campbell (NeurIPS Staff)
Tony Manzo (NeurIPS Staff)
Brian Nettleton (NeurIPS Staff)
Max A Wiesner (NeurIPS Staff)
Stephanie Willes (NeurIPS Staff)

For the curious, here’s a link to and a citation for ‘The AI Scientist’ mentioned in the media advisory’s section on Dr. Cong Lu,

The AI Scientist: Towards Fully Automated Open-Ended Scientific Discovery by Chris Lu, Cong Lu, Robert Tjarko Lange, Jakob Foerster, Jeff Clune, David Ha. arXiv:2408.06292 DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2408.0629

This paper is available on arXiv, which is hosted by Cornell University, and is an open access, open peer review paper,