Neuro-AI: Harnessing AI to understand computation in mind and brain
The 2024 ABC Summer School “Neuro-AI: Harnessing AI to understand computation in mind and brain” will provide selected students the opportunity to take a deep dive into the promising interplay between cognitive neuroscience and artificial intelligence. During a 9-day full-time programme, from June 17 – 26, students will receive masterclasses taught by renowned experts from the field. These lectures from local, national and international experts will be complemented by hands-on workshop and tutorials, where students will learn to apply some of the content covered in the lectures aided by experienced tutors. The workshop and tutorials will be divided into two groups: the beginners group and the advanced/PhD group. The ABC Summer School wraps up June 27 with the interdisciplinary ABC Symposium “Neuro-AI: Bridging the gap between biological and machine intelligence”, featuring distinguished lecturers and the participation of students, lecturers and tutors.
Topic 2024
The past decade has seen an increasing convergence between artificial intelligence and cognitive (neuro)science. Artificial intelligence offers tools to researchers, but has also yielded insights and novel theories about the nature of intelligence and cognition. Similarly, neuroscience and cognitive sciences have also informed and inspired progress in machine cognition.
During this ABC Summerschool, a diverse lineup of speakers will discuss progress that has been made and questions that are still pending. They will address topics ranging from perception to the construction of cognitive maps, as well as large language models and their relation to human reasoning. Students will be taught to apply the concepts they are taught using PyTorch. The first 2 days will focus on how DNN’s can be used to probe what is, and is not, represented in brain activity and how this relates to behavior. The 3rd day will focus on encoding and decoding brain activity. Next we will focus on how to model pathways of information processing and how these map on brain & behavior. On the 5th day we will explore how generative language models can be used as a window into human cognition. On the final 2 lab days we will focus on reinforcement learning and how we can understand the emergence of cognitive maps using these models.
The ABC Summer School will culminate in a symposium, open to a wider audience, featuring six speakers who will present cutting-edge research at the nexus of cognitive neuroscience and artificial intelligence.
The programme consists of local researchers out of Europe only to minimize the train travel time and carbon emissions.
Organisation
This Summer School is organised by Iris Groen (FNWI, Institute for Informatics) and H. Steven Scholte (FMG, Brain & Cognition) in collaboration with the research master programme Brain and Cognitive Sciences. It was made possible through the support of:
- A.D. de Groot Center
- ELLIS Amsterdam
- Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies
Dates
17 June 2023 – 27 June 2024
Location
The ABC Summer School will take place at Amsterdam Roeterseiland Campus.
- Mode
- Short-term
- Credits
- 4 ECTS, 2 weeks
- Language of instruction
- English
- Starts in
- June