In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms have begun to revolutionize the roles of data and machines in our society. AI is an overarching term that describes the corpus of algorithms that learn patterns in data --- “machine learning.” This property of the algorithms is the principal source of both their strength and weakness: the algorithms must be taught, and how we teach them remains an active area of research.

These learning algorithms can drastically accelerate many tasks that humans find cumbersome or challenging: analyzing images, controlling robots, translating language. Because of its power and potential, AI is finding its way into many facets of our lives --- from entertainment and shopping, to self-driving cars and drones, to medicine and the physical sciences --- and its likely here to stay.

The effects of this algorithmic revolution are already being realized in the physical sciences, and recently in Astronomy. Brian Nord will discuss how these algorithms do what they do, how they can be used to accelerate our learning of the cosmos, and how they are changing human societies.