[Talks@IDSIA] PIDSIA by Cosimo Spera (Wednesday, Sept. 18)

*Title: The Future of Conversational AI: Closing the gap on the Turing test *Abstract: In this talk we are going to highlight some major recent breakthroughs in the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and their impact in the definition of conversational models. But instead that talking about “chit-chat” conversation like “Alexa play my favorite Italian song” and the competition for passing the Turing test, we will focus on the automation of the conversations in the context of contact centers and we will address specifically the need to define “goal oriented or intent driven” conversational models. The ultimate objective is to identify what is needed to create personalized conversation in a framework where Artificial Intelligence meets Human Interactions. *Speaker: Cosimo Spera, Ph.D, VP of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, is responsible for leading Uniphore’s data sciences vision and the development of its new generation conversational AI solutions. Prior to joining Uniphore, Cosimo was Chief Data Scientist at 247.ai, where he led the development of Conversational AI models. Cosimo has held executive positions at SaltGrid, where he was responsible for leading the data sciences team and building state of the art predictive models for health and safety, Innotas, DevisionView (IQVIA) and Zephyr Health among others. Cosimo is recognized worldwide in the applied mathematics community, having published over forty peer-reviewed papers and having held earlier in his career tenured academic positions at University of Siena, University of Michigan and University of California at Berkeley. *Date: Wednesday, 18th of September 2019, 12:00-13:00 *Location: Manno, Galleria 1, 2nd floor, room G1-201 *Doodle registration: Pizza and drinks will be offered at the end of the talk. If you plan to attend, please register in a timely fashion at the following link so that we will have no shortage of food: https://doodle.com/poll/yn836pbek9ws3nvg