Invited talk 2

Pierre-Yves Oudeyer is a research director at Inria and head of the FLOWERS lab at Inria and Ensta-ParisTech since 2008. Before, he has been a permanent researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratory for 8 years (1999-2007). He studies developmental autonomous learning and the self-organization of behavioural and cognitive structures, at the frontiers of AI, machine learning, neuroscience, developmental psychology and educational technologies. In particular, he studies exploration in large open-ended spaces, with a focus on autonomous goal setting, intrinsically motivated learning, and how this can automate curriculum learning. With his team, he pioneered curiosity-driven learning algorithms working in real world robots (used in Sony Aibo robots), and showed how the same algorithms can be used to personalize sequences of learning activitivies in educational technologies deployed at large in schools. He developed theoretical frameworks to understand better human curiosity and its role in cognitive development, and contributed to build an international interdisciplinary research community on human curiosity. He also studied how machines and humans can invent, learn and evolve speech communication systems. He is laureate of the Inria-National Academy of Science young researcher prize in computer sciences, of an ERC Starting Grant, and of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Evolutionary Linguistics association. Beyond academic publications and several books, he is co-author of 11 international patents. His team created the first open-source 3D printed humanoid robot for reproducible science and education (Poppy project, now widely used in schools and artistic projects), as well as a startup company. He is also working actively for the diffusion of science towards the general public, through the writing of popular science articles and participation to radio and TV programs as well as science exhibitions. Web: http://www.pyoudeyer.com