November 11, 2022

Friday Night AI: “Is AI Robust Enough to Withstand Attacks?”

Free and open to the public

Invited speakers: Prof. Necmiye Ozay and Prof. Atul Prakash
Organizer: Michigan AI Lab, in collaboration with the Ann Arbor District Library
Moderator: Prof. Rada Mihalcea
When: Nov. 11, 6:30pm – 7:30pm
Where: AADL Ann Arbor downtown, multi-purpose room (343 S 5th Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48104)

REGISTER HERE (free).

As we work on developing advanced AI technologies that are more and more often deployed in real settings,  we increasingly face the risk of ‘attacks’ on these technologies — malicious or sometimes even unintended uses of technology that can lead to nefarious outcomes. Think for instance of the use of AI to  fool self-driving cars, or the AI-generated very realistic-looking  deepfakes used to blackmail individuals and even influence elections.  How can we build AI systems that are robust enough to counteract such attacks?

Join us for a conversation on how we can develop robust AI models that can be safely deployed in real settings.

About the speakers:

Prof. Necmiye Ozay is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan. She received her B.S. degree from Bogazici University, Istanbul in 2004, her M.S. degree from the Pennsylvania State University, University Park in 2006 and her Ph.D. degree from Northeastern University, Boston in 2010, all in electrical engineering. She was a postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena between 2010 and 2013. Dr. Ozay’s research interests include hybrid dynamical systems, control, optimization and formal methods with applications in cyber-physical systems, system identification, verification & validation, autonomy and dynamic data analysis.  Her papers received several awards including a Nonlinear analysis: Hybrid Systems Prize Paper Award for years 2014-2016. She has received five young investigator awards, including NSF CAREER, and two institutional awards from the University of Michigan for her contributions to teaching and research. She is also a recent recipient of the Antonio Ruberti Young Researcher Prize from the IEEE Control Systems Society for her fundamental contributions to the control and identification of hybrid and cyber-physical systems.

Prof. Atul Prakash is a Professor in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor with research interests in computer security and privacy. He received a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering from IIT, Delhi, India and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.  His recent research includes security analysis of emerging IoT software stacks, mobile payment infrastructure in India,  and  vulnerability of  deep learning classifiers to physical perturbations. At the University of Michigan, He has served as Director of the Systems Lab, led the creation of the new Data Science undergraduate program, and is currently serving as the Associate Chair of the CSE Division.

Moderator: Prof. Rada Mihalcea, Director Michigan AI