IDLab at the International Summer School on Artificial Intelligence
Egor Ivanov, Alexey Smirnov, and Mikhail Usanin, trainee researchers from IDLab, participated in the International Summer School-Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ISSCAI), held in Saint Petersburg from July 1 to July 7, 2024.
This conference provides a unique opportunity to become acquainted with the latest advancements in artificial intelligence and to network with leading experts, students, and scientists from around the world. Organized by the School of Physics, Mathematics, and Computer Science and the Laboratory of Social and Cognitive Informatics (SCILa) at the Higher School of Economics (HSE, Saint Petersburg campus), it has become a hub for those interested in cutting-edge technologies. During the event, participants were trained in advanced methods of natural language processing (NLP), working with large language models (LLM), computer vision (CV), speech recognition, and music information retrieval.
I was particularly impressed by the presentations on the nature of artificial intelligence and its expected development in the coming decades. Large language models are currently "stochastic parrots" – no more, no less – and this must be understood when working with such technologies. Most concerns about AI are exaggerated.
Special attention was drawn to the poster session held on July 6, where Egor Ivanov presented his work on risk mitigation in the steel industry: "Maximizing Cost Efficiency and Quality in Steelmaking through Explainable AI." Alexey Smirnov and Mikhail Usanin discussed the impact of burnout on the performance of esports athletes in their study "AI-based approach to burnout identification and its implication for performance in eSports."
The summer school became an excellent platform for knowledge and experience exchange, inspiring young researchers to further scientific discoveries and developments in the field of artificial intelligence.
I was particularly impressed by the poster session, similar to a traditional conference with presentations, where I had the opportunity to familiarize myself with the work of other participants from diverse fields, ranging from biology and the arts to software engineering. Observing these presentations, it becomes clear that AI represents a new revolution. Just as most processes first underwent mechanization and then digitalization, they are now set to be transformed through "neural networkization." I was especially impressed by the work of participants from Sber's laboratories. It was fascinating to learn about the scientific inquiries of one of Russia's leading companies in the field of AI.