The Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) and the University of Genoa are offering 4 PhD scholarships on Computational Vision, Automatic Recognition, and Learning. Research and training activities will be jointly conducted between the DITEN Department of the University of Genoa and IIT infrastructures in Genoa, at the PAVIS - Pattern Analysis and Computer Vision Research line. The PhD program will focus on various research topics, including 3D scene understanding, multi-modal learning, self-supervised and unsupervised deep learning, generative models for human and scene generation, novel graph operators for learning on large-scale and temporal data, and domain adaptation and generalization.

Become a postdoctoral researcher or PhD student at the Human-centric AI Centre (HAI) at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia and work in frontier research in the areas of deep machine learning, trusted AI, trustworthy human-autonomy teaming, natural BCIs, reliable GPT, extended reality and swarm intelligence. We are seeking applicants for PhD scholarships and postdoctoral research positions with prior experience and skills in some of the following areas: machine learning fundamentals and generative models, deep learning optimisation and reinforcement learning, brain-computer interfaces, drones and robotics, trusted AI, extended reality.

The position integrates into an attractive environment of existing activities in artificial intelligence such as machine learning for robotics and computer vision, natural language processing, recommender systems, schedulers, virtual and augmented reality, and digital forensics. The candidate should engage in research and teaching in the general area of artificial intelligence. Examples of possible foci include machine learning for pattern recognition, prediction and decision making, data-driven, adaptive, learning and self-optimizing systems, explainable and transparent AI, representation learning; generative models, neuro-symbolic AI, causality, distributed/decentralized learning, environmentally-friendly, sustainable, data-efficient, privacy-preserving AI, neuromorphic computing and hardware aspects, knowledge representations, reasoning, ontologies. Cooperations with research groups at the Department of Computer Science, the Research Areas and in particular the Digital Science Center of the University as well as with business, industry and international research institutions are expected. The candidate should reinforce or complement existing strengths of the Department of Computer Science.

i) ELIAS - European Lighthouse of AI for Sustainability: Join the team in the Sustainable Materials Innovation Hub led by Mike Shaver and the Centre for AI Fundamentals to transform the interface between AI and sustainability. The role involves using sustainability inputs to direct outcomes. ii) UKRI Turing AI World-Leading Fellowship: The role involves developing new principles and methods for Advanced User Modelling, sequential decision making, and Automatic Experimental Design, with and without a Human-in-the-Loop. iii) UKRI AI hub in Generative Models: The role involves developing principles and tools for generative models technology. iv) PhD student positions in the UKRI AI CDT in Decision Making for Complex Systems: Projects include 'Human-in-the-loop generative models for experimental design' and 'Learning theory and methods for novel types of distributional shifts'.

Thinking about the next position for your research career? I am hiring postdocs in my machine learning research group both in Helsinki, Finland and Manchester, UK. We develop new machine learning methods and study machine learning principles. Keywords include: probabilistic modelling, Bayesian inference, simulation-based inference, multi-agent RL and collaborative AI, sequential decision making and experimental design, active learning, human-in-the-loop learning and user modelling, privacy-preserving learning, Bayesian deep learning, generative models. We also solve problems of other fields with the methods – and use those problems as test benches when developing the methods. We have excellent collaborators in drug design, synthetic biology and biodesign, personalized medicine, cognitive science and human-computer interaction.

Thinking about the next position for your research career? I am hiring postdocs in my machine learning research group both in Helsinki, Finland and Manchester, UK. We develop new machine learning methods and study machine learning principles. Keywords include: probabilistic modelling, Bayesian inference, simulation-based inference, multi-agent RL and collaborative AI, sequential decision making and experimental design, active learning, human-in-the-loop learning and user modelling, privacy-preserving learning, Bayesian deep learning, generative models. We also solve problems of other fields with the methods – and use those problems as test benches when developing the methods. We have excellent collaborators in drug design, synthetic biology and biodesign, personalized medicine, cognitive science and human-computer interaction.

Gaze shifts in humans serve to direct high-resolution vision provided by the fovea towards areas in the environment. Gaze can be considered a proxy for attention or indicator of the relative importance of different parts of the environment. In this talk, we discuss the development of generative models of human gaze in response to visual input. We discuss how such models can be learned, both using supervised learning and using implicit feedback as an agent interacts with the environment, the latter being more plausible in biological agents. We also discuss two ways such models can be used. First, they can be used to improve the performance of artificial autonomous systems, in applications such as autonomous navigation. Second, because these models are contingent on the human’s task, goals, and/or state in the context of the environment, observations of gaze can be used to infer information about user intent. This information can be used to improve human-machine and human robot interaction, by making interfaces more anticipative. We discuss example applications in gaze-typing, robotic tele-operation and human-robot interaction.

Developing agents capable of modeling complex environments and human behaviors within them is a key goal of artificial intelligence research. Progress towards this goal has exciting potential for applications in video games, from new tools that empower game developers to realize new creative visions, to enabling new kinds of immersive player experiences. This talk focuses on recent advances of my team at Microsoft Research towards scalable machine learning architectures that effectively capture human gameplay data. In the first part of my talk, I will focus on diffusion models as generative models of human behavior. Previously shown to have impressive image generation capabilities, I present insights that unlock applications to imitation learning for sequential decision making. In the second part of my talk, I discuss a recent project taking ideas from language modeling to build a generative sequence model of an Xbox game.

Developing agents capable of modeling complex environments and human behaviors within them is a key goal of artificial intelligence research. Progress towards this goal has exciting potential for applications in video games, from new tools that empower game developers to realize new creative visions, to enabling new kinds of immersive player experiences. This talk focuses on recent advances of my team at Microsoft Research towards scalable machine learning architectures that effectively capture human gameplay data. In the first part of my talk, I will focus on diffusion models as generative models of human behavior. Previously shown to have impressive image generation capabilities, I present insights that unlock applications to imitation learning for sequential decision making. In the second part of my talk, I discuss a recent project taking ideas from language modeling to build a generative sequence model of an Xbox game.

3D Morphable Models are my favorite class of generative models and are commonly used to model faces. They are typically applied to ill-posed problems such as 3D reconstruction from 2D data. I'll start my presentation with an introduction into 3D Morphable Models and show what they are capable of doing. I'll then focus on our recent finding, the Identity-Expression Ambiguity: We demonstrate that non-orthogonality of the variation in identity and expression can cause identity-expression ambiguity in 3D Morphable Models, and that in practice expression and identity are far from orthogonal and can explain each other surprisingly well. Whilst previously reported ambiguities only arise in an inverse rendering setting, identity-expression ambiguity emerges in the 3D shape generation process itself. The goal of this presentation is to demonstrate the ambiguity and discuss its potential consequences in a computer vision setting as well as for understanding face perception mechanisms in the human brain.

This talk will focus on the generative modelling of resting state time series or endogenous neuronal activity. I will survey developments in modelling distributed neuronal fluctuations – spectral dynamic causal modelling (DCM) for functional MRI – and how this modelling rests upon functional connectivity. The dynamics of brain connectivity has recently attracted a lot of attention among brain mappers. I will also show a novel method to identify dynamic effective connectivity using spectral DCM. Further, I will summarise the development of the next generation of DCMs towards large-scale, whole-brain schemes which are computationally inexpensive, to the other extreme of the development using more sophisticated and biophysically detailed generative models based on the canonical microcircuits.

The human brain is a complex network of neuronal connections. The precise arrangement of these connections, otherwise known as the topology of the network, is crucial to its functioning. Recent efforts to understand how the complex topology of the brain has emerged have used generative mathematical models, which grow synthetic networks according to specific wiring rules. Evidence suggests that a wiring rule which emulates a trade-off between connection costs and functional benefits can produce networks that capture essential topological properties of brain networks. In this webinar, Professor Alex Fornito and Dr Stuart Oldham will discuss these previous findings, as well as their own efforts in creating more physiologically constrained generative models. Professor Alex Fornito is Head of the Brain Mapping and Modelling Research Program at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health. His research focuses on developing new imaging techniques for mapping human brain connectivity and applying these methods to shed light on brain function in health and disease. Dr Stuart Oldham is a Research Fellow at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health and a Research Officer at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. He is interested in characterising the organisation of human brain networks, with particular focus on how this organisation develops, using neuroimaging and computational tools.