Time: 7:00-9:00 p.m., Wednesday, October 23rd

Location: Armenise Amphitheater at Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Avenue, Boston (link to directions)

Speakers: Steven Torrisi

Graphics: Jovana Andrejevic

The problems facing society have technological solutions, but need materials we don’t have yet. Computers are one of our biggest tools in the quest for finding the materials of the future. We have a new and exciting edge against the problems of the 21st century: With the budding of the field of artificial intelligence, we’re promoting computers from tools to allies. In this talk, I will cover three broad trends to artificial intelligence in materials research: I. How AI can push out the space of what we can scientifically understand; II. How AI can help to interpret and manipulate data from the natural world, helping us make more rapid discoveries; and III. How AI can help augment human intelligence, by helping us detect patterns that lie below the level of human observations. These examples will be presented with an emphasis on cutting-edge results and easily accessible explanations of what the algorithms do.