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Incubator Research Luncheon: Alternative Intelligences

The Incubator for Transdisciplinary Futures invites research faculty from all disciplines to a luncheon that will explore new approaches to understanding intelligence in its many forms and the possibilities that emerge when we bring together perspectives from across the sciences, engineering, and humanities.

For this luncheon, we would like to take an intentionally expansive view of intelligence. What can we learn by considering intelligence not simply as a property of brains or computational systems, but as something that may emerge from biological networks, collective and distributed systems, adaptive physical systems, complex environments, or other forms of organization and interaction? Are there common principles of learning, adaptation, memory, prediction, communication, or collective behavior that span these very different systems?

The goal is not to arrive with a predefined research agenda. Rather, we hope to bring together researchers who may not ordinarily find themselves in the same conversation, identify unexpected intellectual connections, and explore opportunities to build innovative transdisciplinary research teams around fundamental questions concerning the nature and mechanisms of intelligence. We especially welcome participants willing to bring concepts, puzzles, methods, or systems from their own disciplines into conversation with other paradigms. Ideally, this will spark new collaborations and research directions that our disciplines would be unlikely to develop independently. Nicole Moore, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research Development, will join us. 

Our discussion is timely, given the National Science Foundation’s emerging Future of Intelligence research direction, which seeks to advance fundamental understanding of intelligence and catalyze breakthroughs in the architectures, hardware, and theories of learning that may shape the next paradigm of artificial intelligence. 

Lunch will be provided. Please RSVP so we can ensure sufficient food and beverages. Questions? Please contact TheIncubator@wustl.edu. 

RSVP