Lossfunk Research Mixers, Vol. 2

Lossfunk Research Mixers are intimate, topic-first roundtables for people in Bengaluru with a real knack for research, whether they are researchers, engineers, writers, philosophers, artists, interdisciplinary thinkers, or independent tinkerers. Topic on 25th July: AI × Cognitive Science How closely do today’s AI systems resemble the human mind, and where does the analogy break down? You Should Apply If You have a strong research instinct, whether or not you hold a formal research role. You enjoy going unusually deep into ideas across science, technology, philosophy, art, cognition, or culture. You’re actively exploring, building, reading, or investigating something you’re excited to discuss. You want a rigorous peer group, to battle-test ideas, and to meet unusually curious people from different disciplines who feel like they’re in the same orbit. We believe great researchers can come from anywhere. We especially encourage students, early-career professionals, motivated women, and people taking unconventional paths to apply. A glimpse of the minds we mix: A top-30 world-ranked chess grandmaster who hangs out with researchers for fun A 20 y/o IIT Bombay student collaborating with a researcher at Yann LeCun's AMI Labs Cracked founders who've already sold their companies and are now chasing research for its own sake A transhumanist researcher who has worked at two of MIT's top labs (cough cough) Ex applied and foundational researchers from Microsoft Ex YC-backed founding engineer, still deeply curious about research Researchers with publications at ICML, ICLR, AAAI, and ACL Neuroscientists from top labs at IISc (one’s a solid artist, btw) A JEE All-India Rank 239, GTM dominator turned researcher A CMU graduate who's currently solving in robotics Young students and professionals who fly in from other cities to be in the room Bunch of Lossfunk Researchers and Residents AI × Cognitive Science: Cognitive science has spent decades studying how humans form concepts, direct attention, store memories, learn categories, and use knowledge to make decisions. As AI systems become increasingly capable, many of the same words are now used to describe their behaviour, but often in very different ways. We’ll begin with an accessible introduction to foundational ideas from cognitive psychology, including concepts, categorisation, attention, memory, and learning. We’ll then examine a small set of direct comparisons between human cognition and contemporary AI: how each forms representations, remembers information, focuses attention, learns new categories, and generalises from experience. We’ll close with an interactive roundtable to question these comparisons, identify where current models fall short, and explore what cognitive science might teach us about building and understanding more capable AI systems. Presented by Harsha Bommana - https://www.linkedin.com/in/harshabommana/ Organized by Lossfunk, your friendly neighborhood AI lab.