[DL] Spotlight Seminar on AI - Anthony Cohn - January 30 2025

[Luciano Serafini]

[* Apologies in case of multiple posting *]

The Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence, in collaboration with the AISB (Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour, UK) is pleased to announce the next seminar of its Spotlight Seminars on AI initiative:

January 30  – 5:00 P.M. (CET)
Title: Evaluating Commonsense Reasoning in Large Language Models
Speaker: Anthony Cohn, University of Leeds, UK

Link Streaming: https://www.youtube.com/@AixiaIt/streams <https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/@AixiaIt/streams&source=gmail-imap&ust=1738239542000000&usg=AOvVaw2YhVZVeJE2ogCZyZndd6OV> 

Abstract:  In this talk I will discuss the ability of LLMs to perform commonsense reasoning, particularly with regard to spatial reasoning. Across a wide range of LLMs, although they show abilities rather better than chance, they still struggle with many questions and tasks, for example when reasoning about directions, or topological relations. I will also discuss issues arising from the fact that some of the most powerful language models currently are proprietary systems, accessible only via (typically restrictive) web or software programming interfaces. This is the Language-Models-as-a-Service (LMaaS) paradigm. In contrast with scenarios where full model access is available, as in the case of open-source models, such closed-off language models present specific challenges for evaluating, benchmarking, and testing them.

Bio: Anthony (Tony) Cohn is Professor of Automated Reasoning in the School of Computer Science, University of Leeds. His current research interests range from theoretical work on spatial calculi (receiving a KR test-of-time classic paper award in 2020) and spatial ontologies, to cognitive vision, modelling spatial information in the hippocampus, and Decision Support Systems, particularly for the built environment, as well as robotics. He is Foundation Models lead at the Alan Turing Institute where he is conducting research on evaluating the capabilities of large language models, in particular with respect to commonsense reasoning, and is also a co-investigator on a project combining LLMs and probabilistic answer set programming.  He is Editor-in-Chief of Spatial Cognition and Computation and was previously Editor-in-chief of the AI journal. He has previously been President of IJCAI, EurAI, KR inc, and AISB. He is the recipient of the 2021 Herbert A Simon Cognitive Systems Prize, and is also (uniquely)  the recipient of  Distinguished Service Awards from the three main international AI societies:  IJCAI, AAAI and EurAI, as well as from KR Inc. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering,  the Learned Society of Wales, the AI societies AAAI, AISB,  EurAI and AAIA, as well as the CORE Academy (International Core Academy of Sciences and Humanities) and the International AI Industry Alliance.
The joint AI*IA/AISB Committee of the Spotlight Seminars on AI, 

Giuseppe De Giacomo
Floriana Grasso
Antonio Lieto
Bertie Muller
Luciano Serafini

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Antonio Lieto, Ph.D
Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Salerno, Italy
Head of Cognition Interaction and Intelligent Technologies Lab (CIIT)  
Research Associate at ICAR-CNR, Palermo, Italy
Home: https://www.antoniolieto.net <https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.antoniolieto.net&source=gmail-imap&ust=1738239542000000&usg=AOvVaw19eBMk9pm7Q2pdmFoRVBNy>
ACM Distinguished Speaker: https://speakers.acm.org/speakers/lieto_12489 <https://www.google.com/url?q=https://speakers.acm.org/speakers/lieto_12489&source=gmail-imap&ust=1738239542000000&usg=AOvVaw2psqaoXRxe4GBEhy9g2BCr> 

Associate Editor of Cognitive Systems Research (Elsevier)
https://www.journals.elsevier.com/cognitive-systems-research/editorial-board <https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.journals.elsevier.com/cognitive-systems-research/editorial-board&source=gmail-imap&ust=1738239542000000&usg=AOvVaw1maN6ASnpSoxmG6Ctu37xw> 

Author of "Cognitive Design for Artificial Minds" (2021), Routledge, Taylor & Francis.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1138207950 <https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/dp/1138207950&source=gmail-imap&ust=1738239542000000&usg=AOvVaw1l4tjhm86XmPwAM45wn0Jj>

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