Game of Codes: When Games Meet Algorithms

We morph “A Beautiful Mind” & “The Imitation Game”, two Hollywood blockbusters, in focusing on blending the ideas of the scientists portrayed within, John Nash and Alan Turing. Establishing a link between one’s own computer and Google’s requires algorithms to work without the knowledge of data privately possessed by machines on the Internet. The talk will focus on how Computer Science research has tackled this issue.

Have you ever tried to learn the rules of a board game simply by reading the instruction sheet? I have, and I don¹t find it an easy task. However, if you jump right in, and start playing with some experienced players you might find that you pick up the rules fairly quickly. In this talk, I will discuss current research into allowing computers to learn rules of games by observing human play, and how systems based on this research will inform the future of Artificial Intelligence.

The modern world depends on algorithms. But how can we guarantee that an algorithm does what it is supposed to do? This deceptively simple question has occupied a central place in Computer Science research for many decades. In this talk, João is going to present some of the techniques that computer scientists use to determine whether an algorithm is correct. These techniques will be presented through the use of a magic card trick that tests the psychic abilities of the audience!