Della Pietra Lecture Series Presents Scott Aaronson (University of Texas at Austin): May 13 and 14

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The Della Pietra Lecture Series is pleased to present a series of lectures by Scott Aaronson (University of Texas at Austin)

All talks will be streamed live at scgp.stonybrook.edu/live

General Public Lecture 

Wednesday, May 13
Lecture at 5:00pm, Della Pietra Family Auditorium – 103
Reception, 4:15pm, Simons Center lobby

Title: The TRUTH About Quantum Computing
Abstract: Yes, scalable quantum computing should actually work!  Sooner than many expect, which will create a huge headache when it breaks the encryption currently used to protect the Internet.  But no, we don’t think quantum computing can do most of what the popular articles promise in AI and optimization and so forth.  Come to this talk to learn about why!

This talk is designed for a general audience.

Technical Talk for Faculty and Advanced Graduate Students

Thursday, May 14, at 1:00pm in SCGP room 103

Title: Theoretical Computer Science and AI Alignment
Abstract: I’ll survey some areas where I think theoretical computer science, math, and statistics can potentially contribute to the urgent quest to align powerful AI with humane values.  These areas include: the watermarking of AI outputs, mechanistic interpretability (including Paul Christiano’s “No-Coincidence Principle,” and succinct digests of the training process to aid interpretability), and theoretical guarantees for out-of-distribution generalization.

This is a photo of Scott AaronsonScott Aaronson is Schlumberger Chair of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin, and founding director of its Quantum Information Center.  He received his bachelor’s from Cornell University and his PhD from UC Berkeley.  Aaronson’s research has focused mainly on the capabilities and limits of quantum computers.  His first book, Quantum Computing Since Democritus, was published in 2013 by Cambridge University Press. He received the National Science Foundation’s Alan T. Waterman Award, the United States PECASE Award, the Tomassoni-Chisesi Prize in Physics, and the ACM Prize in Computing, and is a Fellow of the ACM and the AAAS and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.  He blogs at “Shtetl-Optimized,” https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog