[Theory] 2/24 Talks at TTIC: Jesse Thomason, University of Washington

[Mary Marre]

*When:*      Monday, February 24th at 11:00 am



*Where:*     TTIC, 6045 S. Kenwood Avenue, 5th Floor, Room 526



*Who: *       Jesse Thomason, University of Washington


*Title:          *Language Grounding with Robots

*Abstract:*
We use language to refer to objects like “*toast*”, “*plate*”, and “*table*”
and to communicate requests such as “*Could you make breakfast?*” In this
talk, I will present work on computational methods to tie language to
physical, grounded meaning. Robots are an ideal platform for such work
because they can perceive and interact with the world. I will discuss
dialog and learning strategies I have developed to enable robots to learn
from their human partners, similar to how people learn from one another
through interaction. I will present methods enabling robots to understand
language referring expressions like “*the heavy, metallic mug*”, the first
work showing that it is possible to learn to connect words to their
perceptual properties in the visual, tactile, and auditory senses of a
physical robot. I will also present benchmarks and models for translating
high-level human language like “*put the toast on the table*” that imply
latent, intermediate goals into executable sequences of agent actions with
the help of low-level, step-by-step language instructions. Finally, I will
discuss how my work in grounded language contributes to NLP, robotics, and
the broader goals of the AI community.


Host: Matthew Walter <mwalter at ttic.edu>



Mary C. Marre
Faculty Administrative Support
*Toyota Technological Institute*
*6045 S. Kenwood Avenue*
*Room 517*
*Chicago, IL  60637*
*p:(773) 834-1757*
*f: (773) 357-6970*
*mmarre at ttic.edu <mmarre at ttic.edu>*
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