Conference: Brain Frontiers: Bridging Biology, roBotics, Brains, and Behavior (B5)

Regents Of The University Of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

Investigators

Abstract

This grant provides funding for a conference/workshop on Brain Frontiers: Bridging Biology, roBotics, Brains, and Behavior (B5) to be held at the Janelia Research Campus in Ashburn, Virginia, in the fall of 2024. The diversity of life on Earth provides a plethora of opportunities to explore vastly distinct forms of sensing, reasoning, and acting, which can inspire robotic systems with greater autonomy, agency, and applicability. Robotic systems provide modularity that facilitates the precise experimental testing of nuanced biological hypotheses, often revealing how whole-organism behaviors emerge from interactions between multiple hierarchical levels of biological complexity. However, these fields are generally organized into different departments, conferences, and publications, limiting their ability to collaboratively work towards common research goals. This workshop will foster conversations between these two fields on the topic of understanding the frontiers of intelligence, both biological and artificial. This will spark creative brainstorming and foster a collaborative, adventurous, and profound set of discussions that will have a significant impact on the present and future directions of the emerging field of embodied biological and robotic intelligence. Participants will co-author a commentary piece on the topic of understanding behaviors using symbiotic approaches in biology and robots, which will encourage readers to seek out interdisciplinary approaches and collaborations. During the workshop, participants will record podcast episodes that will be available to the general public, aimed at middle school through undergraduate listeners, to inspire the next generation of researchers at the intersection of biology and robotics. Building upon decades of collaboration and mutual inspiration between neuroscience and engineering, our ever-increasing ability to embed artificial intelligence in embodied robotic systems presents novel challenges, opportunities, and goals for research at this interface. This 2-day workshop will include 40 researchers who span neuroscience, biophysics, biomechanics, bioengineering, human-robot interactions, autonomy, computer vision, and complex systems to discuss strategies that bridge the gaps between these fields to explore the frontiers of our understanding regarding both biological and artificial intelligence. The workshop will be organized around the following guiding questions: 1) When does robotics need neuroethology? 2) When does neuroethology need robotics? 3) What can we learn from virtual vs. physical models? 4) What can we learn from field work vs. laboratory work? 5) What can we learn from comparative approaches vs. model systems? 6) What can we learn from social groups vs. individuals in isolation? 7) How do we “close the loop” between neuroethology and robotics? 8) What resources would you need to address the major challenges at this intersection? The workshop is supported jointly by the Neural Systems Cluster in the Directorate for Biological Sciences and the Mind, Machine and Motor Nexus program in the Directorate for Engineering. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.