David Silver - Deep Reinforcement Learning from AlphaGo to AlphaStar (Talk back at UAlberta) Part 1

Deep Reinforcement Learning from AlphaGo to AlphaStar
July 23, 2019 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
1-440, Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science (CCIS)

Self-learning systems have achieved remarkable success in several challenging problems for artificial intelligence by combining reinforcement learning with deep neural networks. In this talk, David Silver ('09 PhD) will describe the origins of AlphaGo: the first program to defeat a human champion in the game of Go; AlphaZero: which learned, from scratch, to also defeat the world computer champions in chess and shogi; and AlphaStar: the first program to defeat a human champion in the real-time strategy game of StarCraft.

Date & Time:
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
4:00 p.m. Public lecture
5:00 p.m. Moderated Q &A

Location:
1-440, Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science (CCIS)
University of Alberta

Biography:

David Silver ('09 PhD) leads the reinforcement learning group at DeepMind. Silver's research caught the world’s attention in 2015, when AlphaGo, the program he started during his PhD studying with computing science professors Rich Sutton and Martin Müller, bested the world’s Go Champion, Lee Sedol.

David graduated from Cambridge University in 1997 with the Addison-Wesley award. Subsequently, David co-founded the video games company Elixir Studios, where he was CTO and lead programmer, receiving several awards for technology and innovation. David returned to academia in 2004 to study for a PhD on reinforcement learning with Rich Sutton, where he co-introduced the algorithms used in the first master-level 9x9 Go programs. David was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 2011, and subsequently became a professor at University College London.

David consulted for DeepMind from its inception, joining full-time in 2013, where he leads the reinforcement learning team. David co-led the Atari project, in which a program learned to play 50 different games directly from pixels . He is best-known for leading the AlphaGo project, culminating in the first program to defeat a top professional player in the full-size game of Go, as well as the AlphaZero project (in which a program learned by itself to defeat the world's strongest chess, shogi and Go programs). These achievements have been recognized by awards such as the Marvin Minsky Medal, Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal, Mensa Foundation Prize, Cannes Lion Grand Prix, and several best paper awards.