Computer Science Colloquium / Research, Ethics and Society Initiative Seminar
Thoughts of a Reformed Computer Scientist: On the Nature of Real and Artificial Intelligence
Dr. James Morris, MBA, PhD
Emeritus Professor of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
Talk Abstract:
Dr. Morris will reflect on his sixty-year career in computer science spanning his time as a student at Carnegie Mellon and MIT, as a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon and Berkeley, and as an innovator in computer science and artificial intelligence (AI), including work at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center where he was part of the team that developed the Alto System, a precursor to today’s personal computers. For five years, he directed the Information Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon, a joint project with IBM which developed a prototype university computing system, Andrew. His talk will provide insight into how he and other innovators understand human behavior, human intelligence, and AI.
Location:
Sennott Square Building, Room 5502 -- the talk will also be live-streamed on YouTube
Note: CS 2003 students should attend in person and must sign in and out of the event.
Biography:
Dr. James H. Morris is a Professor Emeritus of Computer Science and Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon University. He received a bachelor’s degree from Carnegie Tech, an MS in management and a PhD in Computer Science from MIT. His PhD thesis re-discovered the notion of contextual equivalence from the work of Leibniz. He taught at the University of California at Berkeley where he contributed to some important underlying principles of programming languages: continuations, module invariants, and lazy evaluation. He was a co-discoverer of the Knuth-Morris-Pratt string searching algorithm. For ten years he worked at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center where he was part of the team that developed the Alto System, a precursor of today’s computer environment. From 1983 to 1988 he directed the Information Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon, a joint project with IBM, which developed a prototype university computing system, Andrew. From 1992 to 2004 he served as department head, then dean in the School of Computer Science. He held the Herbert A. Simon Professorship of Human Computer Interaction from 1997 to 2000. He founded Carnegie Mellon’s Human Computer Interaction Institute, Robot Hall of Fame, and Silicon Valley Campus. He was the dean of the Silicon Valley campus from 2004 to 2009. He was a founder of MAYA Design, a consulting firm specializing in interactive product design. He has written columns for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pittsburgh Quarterly.
Host:
Dr. Alex Labrinidis