Math Encounters: "Under the Hood: The Mathematics of AI" June 4, 2025 featuring Rebecca Willett

Math Encounters: "Under the Hood: The Mathematics of AI"
featuring Rebecca Willett
Wednesday, June 4, 2025

Investing in applied artificial intelligence (AI) without understanding the underlying mathematical foundations is like investing in biotech without understanding biology. Join University of Chicago Professor of Statistics and Computer Science Rebecca Willett and learn how mathematics is having a tremendous impact on AI and machine learning. In this engaging, hands-on presentation, Dr. Willett will highlight the core mathematical ideas underlying AI and their impacts on applications, including an exploration of the basics of learning, how Netflix decides what movie to recommend next, how ChatGPT writes stories, how AI helps predict weather more accurately, and how math and statistics help protect fairness and privacy in AI systems.

Rebecca Willett is the Worah Family Professor of Statistics and Computer Science at the University of Chicago and Director of AI in the Data Science Institute. Her research focuses on machine learning, scientific computing, and signal processing. She has received numerous honors, including the Data Science Career Prize from SIAM in 2024 and election as a Fellow of SIAM (2021) and IEEE (2022). Willett has held leadership roles in several NSF-Simons Foundation initiatives and directs research projects on AI in science.

Math Encounters is MoMath’s popular free public presentation series celebrating the spectacular world of mathematics. This program is funded by Simons Foundation International and administered by the Simons Foundation’s Science, Society & Culture division.