Samuel D. Conte Distinguished Lecture Series

Professor Somesh Jha

Title

Trustworthy Machine Learning and the Security Mindset

Abstract

Fueled by massive amounts of data, models produced by machine-learning (ML) algorithms, especially deep neural networks (DNNs), are being used in diverse domains where trustworthiness is a concern, including automotive systems, finance, healthcare, natural language processing, and malware detection. Of particular concern is the use of ML algorithms in cyber-physical systems (CPS), such as self-driving cars and aviation, where an adversary can cause serious consequences. Interest in this area of research has simply exploded. In this work, we will emphasize the need for a security mindset in trustworthy machine learning, and then cover some lessons learned. Large Language Models (LLMs) as been a paradigm shift and towards the end we will touch on the subject of trustworthiness in the context of LLMs.

Bio

Somesh Jha received his B.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi in Electrical Engineering. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University under the supervision of Prof. Edmund Clarke (a Turing award winner). Currently, Somesh Jha is the Lubar Professor in the Computer Sciences Department at the University of Wisconsin (Madison). His work focuses on analysis of security protocols, survivability analysis, intrusion detection, formal methods for security, and analyzing malicious code. Recently, he has focused his interest on privacy and adversarial ML (AML). Somesh Jha has published several articles in highly-refereed conferences and prominent journals. He has won numerous best-paper and distinguished-paper awards. Prof. Jha received the CAV award for his work on CEGAR and also has received the IIT-Delhi Distinguished Alumni award. Prof. Jha is the fellow of the ACM, IEEE, and AAAS.

Professor Vincent Conitzer

Spring, 2024
TBD 

Bio

Vincent Conitzer is Professor of Computer Science (with affiliate/courtesy appointments in Machine Learning, Philosophy, and the Tepper School of Business) at Carnegie Mellon University, where he directs the Foundations of Cooperative AI Lab (FOCAL). He is also Head of Technical AI Engagement at the Institute for Ethics in AI, and Professor of Computer Science and Philosophy, at the University of Oxford.

Previous to joining CMU, Conitzer was the Kimberly J. Jenkins Distinguished University Professor of New Technologies and Professor of Computer Science, Professor of Economics, and Professor of Philosophy at Duke University. He received Ph.D. (2006) and M.S. (2003) degrees in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, and an A.B. (2001) degree in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University.

Conitzer has received the 2021 ACM/SIGAI Autonomous Agents Research Award, the Social Choice and Welfare Prize, a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the IJCAI Computers and Thought Award, an NSF CAREER award, the inaugural Victor Lesser dissertation award, an honorable mention for the ACM dissertation award, and several awards for papers and service at the AAAI and AAMAS conferences. He has also been named a Guggenheim Fellow, a Sloan Fellow, a Kavli Fellow, a Bass Fellow, an ACM Fellow, a AAAI Fellow, and one of AI's Ten to Watch. He has served as program and/or general chair of the AAAI, AAMAS, AIES, COMSOC, and EC conferences. Conitzer and Preston McAfee were the founding Editors-in-Chief of the ACM Transactions on Economics and Computation (TEAC).