Guest Lecture Series by Professor Joseph Halpern from Cornell University, USA

TAU Institute of Advanced Studies invites you to a lecture series by Lowy Distinguished guest professor Joseph Halpern, Joseph C. Ford Chair of Engineering, Computer Science Department at Cornell University (New York, USA).

"My research focuses on the interface between game and decision theory and computer science, on reasoning about knowledge and uncertainty, and on causality. I've also done work and continue to think actively about security, (fault tolerant) distributed computing, and modal logic." —Professor Joseph Halpern

The lectures will be part of the Computer Sciences Colloquium and Machine Learning Seminar.

Three lectures will cover certain aspects of reasoning about uncertainty and decision-making.

Lecture 2: A Causal Analysis of Harm

The lecture will be part of the Computer Sciences Colloquium

It has proved notoriously difficult to define harm. Indeed, it has been claimed that the notion of harm is a "Frankensteinian jumble" that should be replaced by other well-behaved notions. On the other hand, harm has become increasingly important as concerns about the potential harm that may be caused by AI systems grow. For example, the European Union's draft AI act mentions "harm" over 25 times and points out that, given its crucial role, it must be defined carefully.

Professor Halpern will define the notion of harm and show how this definition can handle the problematic examples from the literature. 

This is joint work with Sander Beckers and Hana Chockler.

WHEN: February 4, 2024, 11:00 AM

WHERE: Checkpoint Building, Hall 001

Light refreshments will be served before the lectures.

No prior registration required.