INAUGURAL PROFESSORIAL LECTURE:

                 "WAITING FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:
               DESPERATELY SEEKING INTELLIGENT MULTIMEDIA"

Professor Paul Mc Kevitt, B.Sc. (Hons.), M.S., Ph.D., M.Ed.

Chair in Intelligent MultiMedia
Faculty of Informatics, University of Ulster

** WEDNESDAY, 26th MARCH, 2003 **

VENUE:
MD-108, Magee Campus, Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland

7:00 PM: LECTURE START

7:45 PM: BOOK LAUNCH: "Language, vision & music" 

8:00 PM: REFRESHMENTS BUFFET

ABSTRACT:
Man  has been  waiting for  Artificial Intelligence,  i.e. intelligent
machines or  computers, for centuries.   Ever since this  sub-field of
Computer Science was christened "Artificial Intelligence" at Dartmouth
in  1956  by  Professor  John  McCarthy  there  has  been  significant
progress;  however, as  yet,  we  do not  have  machines which  people
consider  generally  intelligent  --   i.e.   those  which  can  solve
Professor  John  Searle's  "Chinese  Room Problem"  or  Alan  Turing's
"Turing  Test": 
Will it  ever be  possible to build  machines which  perform learning,
creativity and consciousness in the same way as people do ?

LANGUAGE, VISION & MUSIC:  what common cognitive patterns underlie our
competence in  these disparate modes of thought?   Language (natural &
formal),  vision  and music  seem  to  share  at least  the  following
attributes: a hierarchical  organisation of constituents, recursivity,
metaphor,   the   possibility   of  self-reference,   ambiguity,   and
systematicity.  

Intelligent MultiMedia  or MultiModal Systems consider  the signal and
symbol  processing of  at  least  LANGUAGE, VISION  &  MUSIC with,  in
particular, linkage of inputs and outputs to semantic representations.
Applications  include  Intelligent  Human-Computer Interfaces,  Mobile
handheld HitchHiker  guides, talking heads,  and Storytelling systems.
One of the basic features  of consciousness is its MultiModality, that
there are  possibilities to  model this with  contemporary technology,
and  that  cross-cultural  commonalities  in the  experience  of,  and
creativity  within,  various  modalities  are significant:   
With  the  advent  of  Intelligent  MultiMedia  does  this  aspect  of
consciousness implementation in mind/brain acquire new significance?

Our  goal will be  to attempt  to answer  these and  other interesting
questions  with Gedanken  Experiments,  technology demonstrations  and
historical reference...

BIO:
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Professor  Paul Mc  Kevitt is  39 and  from D/un  Na  nGall (Donegal),
IRELAND  on the  Northwest  of the  EU.   He is  Chair in  Intelligent
MultiMedia at  the School of Computing &  Intelligent Systems, Faculty
of   Informatics,  University   of  Ulster   (Magee   College),  Derry
(Londonderry),  Northern   Ireland.   Previously,  he   was  Associate
Professor (Senior Lecturer)  in the School of Computer  Science at The
Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland.  He has been Visiting
Professor  of Intelligent  MultiMedia  Computing in  the Institute  of
Electronic Systems at Aalborg  University, Denmark and a British EPSRC
(Engineering and  Physical Sciences Research  Council) Advanced Fellow
in the Department of Computer  Science at the University of Sheffield,
England.  The Fellowship, commenced in 1994, and released him from his
Associate Professorship  (tenured Lectureship) for 5  years to conduct
full-time research on the  integration of natural language, speech and
vision  processing.   He  completed  a Master's  degree  in  Education
(M.Ed.)  at  the University  of Sheffield in  1999.  He  completed his
Ph.D.  in  Computer Science  at the University  of Exeter,  England in
1991.  His Master's  degree in  Computer Science (M.S.)   was obtained
from  New Mexico State  University, New  Mexico, USA  in 1988  and his
Bachelor's degree in Computer  Science (B.Sc., Hons.)  from University
College Dublin (UCD), Ireland in 1985.  His primary research interests
are in  Natural Language Processing (NLP) including  the processing of
pragmatics, beliefs and intentions in dialogue.  He is also interested
in  Philosophy,   MultiMedia  and  the  general   area  of  Artificial
Intelligence.
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Professor Paul Mc Kevitt
Chair in Intelligent MultiMedia
School of Computing & Intelligent Systems
Faculty of Informatics
University of Ulster, Magee 
BT48 7JL, Derry/Londonderry
NORTHERN IRELAND

E-mail:           p.mckevitt@ulster.ac.uk
WWW:              http://www.infc.ulst.ac.uk/staff/p.mckevitt
FaX:              (+44) 28 71375470

Phone:            (+44) 28 71375433 (Office MG-221)
                  (+44) 28 71375382 (School Office) 
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