A free public lecture titled "Artificial Intelligence and the Age of Emergence" will be presented by Roger Melko from the University of Waterloo at the Aspen Center for Physics on Wednesday, February 12. This event is part of the Nick and Maggie DeWolf Foundation winter lecture series.

The evening will begin at 5:00 PM with tea and cookies, followed by the lecture at 5:30 PM sharp. While there is limited free parking available at the Center, attendees are encouraged to carpool or use the Downtowner or RFTA Crosstown Shuttle for convenient access.

This event is free, but RSVPs are highly recommended.

The universe is made up of things that interact. From microscopic particles in space, to human minds on the internet, these interactions can lead to incredible examples of "emergence". As physicists, our basic understanding of emergence is still relatively poor, as demonstrated by a laundry list of yet-unexplained emergent phenomena found throughout nature. In this lecture, I will examine the thread of emergence which connects different mysteries, such as superconductivity, universality, life, consciousness, and the appearance of internet memes. The most striking recent example of emergence — artificial intelligence — could itself be the key to unravelling the thread behind these mysteries. In this talk, Melko will demonstrate how, like other emergent phenomena before it, AI is now being used to help build the next generation of technology; in this case the technology needed to control quantum computers. Perhaps, the future of physics lies in a better understanding of hierarchies of emergence in interacting things. This could allow us to harness emergence as a resource, potentially transforming science, technology, and society once again.

Roger Melko is a theoretical physicist at the University of Waterloo and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. He earned his PhD from the University of California Santa Barbara, studying computational strategies for quantum matter. He then spent two years at Oak Ridge National Lab running quantum simulations on some of the largest computers on the planet, before returning to Canada to take up his professorship. His current research explores the emerging relationship between artificial intelligence and quantum computers. He is the recipient of two prestigious research medals from the Canadian Association of Physicists, and was part of the championship team that won the North American Cup pond hockey tournament in 2017.

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