ARNI

ARNI Distinguished Seminar Series: Ellie Pavlick (Brown University)
2026-04-24 15:00 - 16:30 (America/New_York) | Zuckerman Institute- Kavli Auditorium 9th Fl, 3227 Broadway, NY
Ellie Pavlick
(Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Linguistics, Brown University and Director, NSF Institute on Interaction for AI Assistants (ARIA))
Location: ZI Kavli Auditorium 9th Floor
Time: 3:00pm
Title: (How) Does AI Think?
Abstract: The increasingly human-like behavior of AI has led to a fascination with ascribing it human-like internal properties — notions like thinking, understanding, and reasoning. In this talk, I will take a step back and discuss a range of results from the past several years of interpretability which present an increasingly consistent view of AI’s internal processing. Specifically, I will discuss how AI represents a surprising amount of internal structure, and yet remains primarily idiosyncratic and context-sensitive. I use the opportunity to talk about the philosophical nature of human-AI comparison–when such analogies are fruitful for scientific and technological progress, and when they mislead.
Zoom: Upon request @arni@columbia.edu

Speaker: Ziwei (Sara) Gong - ARNI Language and Vision Working Group
2026-04-27 15:00 - 16:00 | Virtual
Title: Decoding Human Emotions: From Psychological Theories to Multimodal NLP Models
Abstract: Understanding and modeling human emotions is essential for natural language processing (NLP) applications, from conversational AI to mental health assessment. This talk explores the intersection of emotion theory, dataset development, and multimodal machine learning, highlighting key challenges and innovations in emotion recognition. We discuss the alignment of psychological emotion frameworks with computational models, strategies for improving multimodal emotion recognition, and advances in self-supervised learning for low-resource languages. Additionally, we examine how multimodal signals enhance model performance and interpretability.

ARNI Continual Learning Working Group Meeting
2026-04-30 15:00 - 16:00
We will feature a team of speakers from Blank Slate Technologies, a startup investigating issues related to continual learning and catastrophic forgetting in human operatives on mission-critical tasks. The team will be led by CEO Matt Trevithick. The title of the talk is the following:

Quantifying Cognitive Performance in the Wild: Measurement, Modeling, and Operational Outcomes

Speaker: Hubert Banville, Meta – ARNI Frontier Models for Neuroscience and Behavior Working Group
2026-05-11 15:00 - 16:00 | Virtual
Hubert Banville, Meta

Title: A foundation model of vision, audition, and language for in-silico neuroscience

Abstract: Cognitive neuroscience is fragmented into specialized models, each tailored to specific experimental paradigms, hence preventing a unified model of cognition in the human brain. Here, we introduce TRIBE v2, a tri-modal (video, audio and language) foundation model capable of predicting human brain activity in a variety of naturalistic and experimental conditions. Leveraging a unified dataset of over 1,000 hours of fMRI across 720 subjects, we demonstrate that our model accurately predicts high-resolution brain responses for novel stimuli, tasks and subjects, superseding traditional linear encoding models, delivering several-fold improvements in accuracy. Critically, TRIBE v2 enables in silico experimentation: tested on seminal visual and neuro-linguistic paradigms, it recovers a variety of results established by decades of empirical research. Finally, by extracting interpretable latent features, TRIBE v2 reveals the fine-grained topography of multisensory integration. These results establish artificial intelligence as a unifying framework for exploring the functional organization of the human brain. We will be hosting Hubert Banville from Meta who will discuss their latest TRIBE fMRI foundation model.

Memory, Neuroscience and AI: Zuckerman Institute’s Local Circuits Symposium
2026-05-12 13:00 - 19:00 | Zuckerman Institute- Kavli Auditorium 9th Fl, 3227 Broadway, NY
Register Here!
How are memories formed, organized, and used to guide behavior? And what can artificial intelligence teach us about how the brain remembers?
Join faculty and early-career researchers from across Columbia for the Local Circuits symposium, exploring the science of memory across biological and artificial systems. Talks will span systems and cognitive neuroscience, machine learning, and theoretical modeling, examining how brain circuits encode and retrieve memories and how AI is helping researchers probe these processes in new ways.
Part of the Zuckerman Institute’s Local Circuits series, this symposium brings together researchers from across the university to spark collaboration around mind, brain, and behavior.
All Columbia ID holders are welcome. Registration is required.
Presented by the Alan Kanzer Center for Cognition and Reasoning
Opening Remarks:
Angela V. Olinto, Provost of the University; Professor of Astronomy and of Physics, Columbia University
Speakers include:
Chris Baldassano, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychology, Columbia University
Christine Denny, PhD, Associate Professor of Clinical Neurobiology (in Psychiatry), Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Stefano Fusi, PhD, Professor of Neuroscience, Principal Investigator in the Zuckerman Institute, Columbia University
Scott Small, MD, Boris and Rose Katz Professor of Neurology, Director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Kim Stachenfeld, PhD, Senior Research Scientist at Google DeepMind in NYC and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, Columbia University
Richard Zemel, PhD, Trianthe Dakolias Professor of Engineering and Applied Science; Professor of Computer Science; Director of the NSF AI Institute for Artificial and Natural Intelligence (ARNI), Columbia University
Moderator:
Daphna Shohamy, PhD, Kavli Professor of Brain Science; Director of the Zuckerman Institute; Co-director of the Kavli Institute for Brain Science, Columbia University

Speaker: Alexandre Pouget - ARNI Distinguish Seminar Series
2026-05-21 15:00 - 16:00 | Zuckerman Institute- Kavli Auditorium 9th Fl, 3227 Broadway, NY
Alexandre Pouget
Title and Abstract: TBD
Zoom link: Upon request @ arni@columbia.edu

CTN: Bence Olveczky (Harvard University) - June 26, 2026
2026-06-26 11:30 - 13:00 | Zuckerman Institute- Kavli Auditorium 9th Fl, 3227 Broadway, NY
Bence Olveczky
Location: ZI
Date: June 26, 2026
Time: 11:30am
Zoom: Upon Request @ arni@Columbia.edu
Title and Abstract: TBD
