ASSET Seminar: “Beyond Scaling: Frontiers of Retrieval-Augmented Language Models”

Amy Gutmann Hall, Room 414 3333 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, United States

Abstract: Large Language Models (LMs) have demonstrated remarkable capabilities by scaling up training data and model sizes. However, they continue to face critical challenges, including hallucinations and outdated knowledge, which particularly limit their reliability in expert domains such as scientific research and software development. In this talk, I will urge the necessity of moving beyond […]

ASSET Seminar: “Demystifying the Inner Workings of Language Models”

Amy Gutmann Hall, Room 414 3333 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, United States

Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) power a rapidly-growing and increasingly impactful suite of AI technologies. However, due to their scale and complexity, we lack a fundamental scientific understanding of much of LLMs’ behavior, even when they are open source. The “black-box” nature of LMs not only complicates model debugging and evaluation, but also limits trust […]

ASSET Seminar: “From Data to Insights: Trustworthy Solutions for Imaging Problems”

Amy Gutmann Hall, Room 414 3333 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, United States

Abstract:  Extracting insights from imaging data used to be straightforward: every component of imaging systems was engineered by humans, the analysis and interpretation of the collected data was driven by human understanding and experience, and only humans were responsible for the impact of the decisions stemming from such insights. Today, however, machine learning permeates every […]

ASSET Seminar: “Algorithmic Stability for Trustworthy Machine Learning and Statistics”

Amy Gutmann Hall, Room 414 3333 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, United States

Abstract: Data-driven systems hold immense potential to positively impact society, but their reliability remains a challenge. Their outputs are often too brittle to changes in their training data, leaving them vulnerable to data poisoning attacks, prone to leaking sensitive information, or susceptible to overfitting. Establishing fundamental principles for designing algorithms that are both stable—to mitigate these […]

ASSET Seminar: “Controlling Language Models”

Amy Gutmann Hall, Room 414 3333 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, United States

Abstract: Controlling language models is key to unlocking their full potential and making them useful for downstream tasks. Successfully deploying these models often requires both task-specific customization and rigorous auditing of their behavior. In this talk, I will begin by introducing a customization method called Prefix-Tuning, which adapts language models by updating only 0.1% of […]

ASSET Seminar: “Getting Lost in ML Safety Vibes”

Amy Gutmann Hall, Room 414 3333 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, United States

Abstract:  Machine learning applications are increasingly reliant on black-box pretrained models. To ensure safe use of these models, techniques such as unlearning, guardrails, and watermarking have been proposed to curb model behavior and audit usage. Unfortunately, while these post-hoc approaches give positive safety ‘vibes’ when evaluated in isolation, our work shows that existing techniques are quite brittle when deployed […]

ASSET Seminar: “Alignment and Control with Representation Engineering”

Amy Gutmann Hall, Room 414 3333 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, United States

Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) are vulnerable to adversarial attacks, which bypass common safeguards put in place to prevent these models from generating harmful output. Notably, these attacks can be transferrable to other models---even proprietary ones—potentially compromising a wide range of AI systems with a single exploit. This surprising fragility underscores a critical weakness in […]

ASSET Seminar: “Learning Reliable and Robust Generative Intelligence”

Amy Gutmann Hall, Room 414 3333 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, United States

Abstract: Robust simulation and precise modeling of physical dynamics are essential for advancing perception, planning, and control in the development of generalist physical agents. In this talk, I will present my research on building generative models that combine physical realism with scalability in high-dimensional environments. The presentation delves into both the theoretical foundations and practical […]

ASSET Seminar: “Fake News, Echo Chambers, and Algorithms: A Data Science Perspective”

Amy Gutmann Hall, Room 414 3333 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, United States

Abstract: American democracy has been undermined by an “infodemic” of fake news, coupled with the widespread segregation of consumers into ideologically homogenous echo chambers by inscrutable algorithms deployed by rapacious social media platforms—or so we are told. In this talk, I will critically examine claims of this sort—made frequently by politicians, journalists, and public intellectuals—summarizing […]

ASSET Seminar: “Neurosymbolic Program Synthesis: Bridging Perception and Reasoning in Real-World Applications”

Levine 307 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Abstract: Neurosymbolic Program Synthesis (NSP) integrates neural networks and symbolic reasoning to tackle complex tasks requiring both perception and logical reasoning. This talk provides an overview of the NSP framework and its applications in domains such as image editing, data extraction, and robot learning from demonstrations. We will delve into the key ideas behind NSP […]