Special Lecture - Tom Mitchell
September 29, 2026 2:00PM—3:20PM
Location:
In Person
-
Posner Hall 152
Speaker:
TOM M. MITCHELL,
SCS Founders University Professor, Machine Learning Department, School of Computer Science, and, Block Center for Technology and Society, Carnegie Mellon University
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom/
Machine learning is the key technology underlying today's amazing artificial intelligence systems.
How did we get to today's technology which now supports a trillion dollar AI industry? What were the key scientific breakthroughs? What were the surprises and dead-ends along the way, as seen by the researchers who created them? Who were the personalities involved, and what were they thinking at the time? What should we learn from all this?
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Tom M. Mitchell is the Founders University Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, where he founded the world's first Machine Learning Department, and served as Interim Dean of the School of Computer Science (2018-2019). Beginning with his 1979 Ph.D. research he has worked in machine learning and AI, and he remains optimistic about its future. In 2010 Mitchell was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering "For pioneering contributions and leadership in the methods and applications of machine learning." Mitchell is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow and Past President of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).
This talk will explore the history of machine learning based on personal experience of the speaker, augmented by video interviews with a dozen pioneering researchers in the field.