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Peter Stone
Professor of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin, Head of Sony AI America, Leading AI Scientist & Robot Soccer Pioneer
Peter Stone
Professor of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin, Head of Sony AI America, Leading AI Scientist & Robot Soccer Pioneer
Biography
Peter Stone is the founder and director of the Learning Agents Research Group (LARG) within the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the Department of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin,as well as associate department chair and Director of Texas Robotics. He is also an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow, AAAI Fellow, ACM Fellow, IEEE Fellow, AAAS Fellow, Fulbright Scholar, and co-founder of Cogitai, Inc. Recently, Stone became the head of Sony AI America.
Stone co-authored the papers that first proposed the robot soccer challenges around which Robocup was founded. He is a Vice President of the International RoboCup Federation and was a co-chair of RoboCup-2001 at IJCAI-01. Peter Stone was a Program Co-Chair of AAMAS 2006, was General Co-Chair of AAMAS 2011, and was a Program Co-Chair of AAAI-14. He has developed teams of robot soccer agents that have won RoboCup championships in the simulation (1998, 1999, 2003, 2005, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), in the standard platform (2012) and in the small-wheeled robot (1997, 1998) leagues. He has also developed agents that have won auction trading agents competitions (2000, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013.)
His main research interest in AI is understanding how we can best create complete intelligent agents. He considers adaptation, interaction, and embodiment to be essential capabilities of such agents. Thus, his research focuses mainly on machine learning, multiagent systems, and robotics. To him, the most exciting research topics are those inspired by challenging real-world problems. He believes that complete successful research includes both precise, novel algorithms and fully implemented and rigorously evaluated applications. His application domains have included robot soccer, autonomous bidding agents, autonomous vehicles, autonomic computing, and social agents.
Speaker Videos
TEDTalk: Can robots beat elite soccer players?
RoboCup
Accepting A.I.
Reinforcement Learning
Speech Topics
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Research
Understanding the nature of "intelligence" is one of the greatest scientific challenges of our time. One way the field of Artificial Intelligence contributes to meeting this challenge is by studying and developing algorithms for creating robust, fully autonomous "agents" that can coexist with us in the real world. Such agents will need to be able to learn, both in order to correct and circumvent their inevitable imperfections, and to keep up with a dynamically changing world. They will also need to be able to interact with one another, whether they share common goals, they pursue independent goals, or their goals are in direct conflict.
This talk will present current research directions in machine learning (especially reinforcement learning), multiagent reasoning, and robotics, and will discuss their unification within concrete application domains.
The Future of AI & Robotics
Professor Stone has been at the forefront of the AI research community for more than a quarter of a century, and in 2016 published the first Study Panel Report of the One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence. Hear his well-informed perspective on future trends in the field, both from and academic and a business point of view.
Can Robots Beat Elite Soccer Players? A Winning Approach to AI
Professor Stone currently serves as the President of the International RoboCup Federation, which pursues the long-term challenge of creating a humanoid team of robots that can beat the (human) World Cup champion soccer team on a real soccer field by the year 2050. His teams have won the annual competition numerous times. Learn about his experiences pursuing this grand challenge for the past 25 years, and his views on prospects for the future.
The Intersection of Automated Vehicles & AI
Now that all the major automobile companies are pursuing the development of fully autonomous vehicles, Professor Stone has retired the car that he successfully entered in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. However he continues to lead the thinking about what the world will be like once all, or most, of the cars on the road are autonomous. He is particularly well-known for his work on autonomous intersection management. Hear his perspective on the possibilities this technology can bring with regards to efficiency of our transportation networks.
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