Ben WaberThe late afternoon is a great time for a fall run in Boston, with some great talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist complementing the spectacular views! (1/10)
First was a nice talk by Tomas Lozano-Perez on building generalist #robots at MIT. This talk gives a good overview of the space and some of the latest work in different aspects of robot architecture, with some good thoughts about why a data and scaling only approach likely won't dramatically advance robotics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB3kYSk5NEU (2/10) #robotics
EI Seminar - Tomas Lozano-Perez - How could we build a generalist robot?
Next was a short panel on incorporating human activity data into systems at UbiComp/ISWC 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P-w38p8VPM (3/10) #UbiComp2023 #ISWC2023 #HCI
UbiComp/ISWC Panel session: 2C - Context, Activities and Behavior
Next was an engaging conversation with Stefano DellaVigna on the future of behavioral economics at the Behavior Change for Good Initiative. I would have liked more substantial proposals on the significant challenges that the field is facing now such as incentivizing replications through publication in top journals and accepting papers for publication BEFORE the data is collected https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNeCyUyc1kY (4/10) #psychology #economics #BehavioralEconomics
NAS Webinar: What is the Future of Behavioral Economics and Public Policy?
An @theNASciences webinar featuring a presentation by Stefano DellaVigna followed by Q&A with @katherinemilkman2300Co-hosts: @BehaviorChange, Behavioral Scie...
Next was an interesting talk by Nick Haber on autonomous agents at #StanfordHAI. While I wish Haber was more careful with anthropomorphic terminology, the enhancements to traditional RL shown here show real promise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP7V1sGJID0 (5/10) #AI
Nick Haber | Motivation, Representation, and Autonomous Agents
Next was an excellent talk by Chien-Ming Huang on designing collaborative machines. Huang presents a strong approach to designing systems that integrate into workflows, and also presents a rigorous analysis of #LLMs as a tool in these contexts (tldr; they don't do great, but with better design one can make them less bad for experts) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGKgrz_Lveo (6/10) #AI
2023 Fall Robotics Colloquium: Chien-Ming Huang (Johns Hopkins University)
Next was an incredible conversation with Afra Afsharipour on women and M&A on the Business Scholarship podcast. Afsharipour discusses the motivations for M&A and gender differences in outcomes and strategy at the C-suite and board level. Highly recommend https://andrewkjennings.com/2021/10/07/afra-afsharipour-on-women-ma/ (7/10) #law #management
Next was the final day of the digital labor conference at the @Weizenbaum_Institut. Some of the conversation gets a bit off the rails, but the first panel session, and the talk by Fabian Stephany on the state of cloudwork in #Germany in particular, was quite good https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWYg6b1CWDs (8/10) #work #sociology
INDL-6 Day 3
Next was a compelling session on reviving labor power in the US at the American Constitution Society with Catherine Albiston, Catherine Fisk, Veena Dubal, James Pope, and Diana Reddy. This discussion gives essential legal background on how labor power in the US got to its current state and different approaches to change it through law, political, and social action https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe7EMgStz18 (9/10) #labor #law #economics #politics #US #government
Reviving Labor's Constitution (Berkley Law, Panel III)
Last was a fascinating talk by Juan Wachs on emergency medicine #robots at the Maryland Robotics Center. There's still clearly a lot of work to be done in this space, but Wachs provides some compelling early results https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf03DiIN5Fg (10/10) #robotics #medicine
