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SUMMARY:Darwin and the Search for the Master Algorithm - Advait Sarkar\, U
 niversity of Cambridge
DTSTART:20151118T170000Z
DTEND:20151118T183000Z
UID:TALK62589@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Francis Smallwood
DESCRIPTION:Charles Darwin\, father of evolution\, and Alan Turing\, fathe
 r of computation\, have much in common. While much fanfare has been made o
 f the "Turing Test" in recent media\, it is less known that in the very sa
 me paper wherein Turing described his famous imitation game\, he also prop
 osed a "learning machine" which would parallel the principles of evolution
 . The modern interpretation of this idea\, "evolutionary computing"\, has 
 found applications from robotic control and circuit design\, to places as 
 unlikely as police sketches.\n\nBut Darwin's legacy runs deeper. Turing's 
 paper is considered by many to have given birth to the field of artificial
  intelligence\, which today struggles with a key question: is there a sing
 le algorithm which can learn anything\, i.e.\, a "master algorithm"? This 
 question bears an uncanny resemblance to the one faced by natural philosop
 hers in Darwin's day: is there a "master algorithm" which explains the ori
 gin of species? Darwin's stunningly elegant answer had an immeasurable imp
 act on scientific progress\; the impact of a master algorithm for machine 
 learning remains to be seen.
LOCATION:Room 5\, Mill Lane Lecture Rooms\, Mill Lane
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