Columbia University’s AI Summit

ARNI was excited to participate in Columbia University‘s AI Summit on March 4th, showcasing the rich, interdisciplinary AI research taking place across its Morningside, Manhattanville, and Medical Center campuses. The event featured sessions and workshops spanning fields from healthcare to the humanities. Sami Haddadin, Director of the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence and Vice President for Research at MBZUAI, delivered the keynote address on “Robots and the Search for Universal Intelligence: How Machines Learn to Move, Think, and Adapt.”

ARNI’s Director, Richard Zemel, led the opening panel session on “New Frontiers of AI.” Alongside him, ARNI faculty members Christos Papadimitriou and Elias Bareinboim delivered lightning talks, exploring the foundational principles of AI advances, the relationship between artificial and natural intelligence, and AI’s broad impact on industry and society. Lila Davachi explored the cognitive differences between AI and human learning, emphasizing the importance of efficiency and reasoning. Yunzhu Li addressed the challenges of real-world robotics, showcasing advances in tactile sensing and multimodal learning.

At the Columbia Engineering Demo Session, Professor Zemel welcomed students and faculty to explore cutting-edge research, featuring demonstrations of motor learning and embodied intelligence in dexterous robot hands. As AI continues to advance, the summit reinforced a key reminder from Papadimitriou: “AI is still far behind the human brain—there is still a lot of work to do.”

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