ANC - Visitor Seminar 12/03/25 Speaker: Prof Neil Lawrence (University of Cambridge)Title: Jaynes' WorldAbstract: The world we live in is not a very satisfactory one. We are faced with laws of physics that require us to believe that objects are lazy ... they are keen to minimise their action. We are told that there are global speed limits for photons even though we haven't identified a photon police-force. We are told that thermodynamic systems minimise their free energy. Do we really live in a teleological Universe?In this talk we introduce an alternative view, In Jaynes' World (named after E T Jaynes, of maximum entropy fame) time is not a fundamental variable, it is the path through the universal configuration that maximises entropy. By defining entropy as the cause of time rather than time as the cause of entropy we suggest that in Jaynes' World least action is a consequence of our definition of time. We suggest that Jaynes' World could be a less teleological domain and one whose physicists are far more comfortable than ours..Bio: Neil Lawrence is the inaugural DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Cambridge where he leads the University's flagship mission on AI, AI@Cam. He has been working on machine learning models for over 25 years. He returned to academia in 2019 after three years as Director of Machine Learning at Amazon. His main interest is the interaction of machine learning with the real world. This interest was triggered by deploying machine learning in the African context, where 'end-to-end' solutions are normally required. This has inspired new research directions at the interface of machine learning and systems research, this work is funded by a Senior AI Fellowship from the Alan Turing Institute. Neil is also visiting Professor at the University of Sheffield and the co-host of Talking Machines. He is the author of the book 'The Atomic Human' (Allen Lane, 2024). Mar 12 2025 11.00 - 12.00 ANC - Visitor Seminar 12/03/25 Prof Neil Lawrence (University of Cambridge) G.07
ANC - Visitor Seminar 12/03/25 Speaker: Prof Neil Lawrence (University of Cambridge)Title: Jaynes' WorldAbstract: The world we live in is not a very satisfactory one. We are faced with laws of physics that require us to believe that objects are lazy ... they are keen to minimise their action. We are told that there are global speed limits for photons even though we haven't identified a photon police-force. We are told that thermodynamic systems minimise their free energy. Do we really live in a teleological Universe?In this talk we introduce an alternative view, In Jaynes' World (named after E T Jaynes, of maximum entropy fame) time is not a fundamental variable, it is the path through the universal configuration that maximises entropy. By defining entropy as the cause of time rather than time as the cause of entropy we suggest that in Jaynes' World least action is a consequence of our definition of time. We suggest that Jaynes' World could be a less teleological domain and one whose physicists are far more comfortable than ours..Bio: Neil Lawrence is the inaugural DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Cambridge where he leads the University's flagship mission on AI, AI@Cam. He has been working on machine learning models for over 25 years. He returned to academia in 2019 after three years as Director of Machine Learning at Amazon. His main interest is the interaction of machine learning with the real world. This interest was triggered by deploying machine learning in the African context, where 'end-to-end' solutions are normally required. This has inspired new research directions at the interface of machine learning and systems research, this work is funded by a Senior AI Fellowship from the Alan Turing Institute. Neil is also visiting Professor at the University of Sheffield and the co-host of Talking Machines. He is the author of the book 'The Atomic Human' (Allen Lane, 2024). Mar 12 2025 11.00 - 12.00 ANC - Visitor Seminar 12/03/25 Prof Neil Lawrence (University of Cambridge) G.07
Mar 12 2025 11.00 - 12.00 ANC - Visitor Seminar 12/03/25 Prof Neil Lawrence (University of Cambridge)
