UW CSE professor Yejin Choi, an expert in natural language processing, was selected as one of 10 young scientists to watch in the field of artificial intelligence in the latest issue of IEEE Intelligent Systems. The list, which is published biennially, celebrates rising stars in the field and is based on nominations by senior AI researchers in academia and industry.
Choi’s research combines natural language processing, machine learning and computer vision in seeking to connect language with visual intelligence and with social and emotional intelligence. By enabling computers to detect nonliteral or implied meaning, she aims to develop their capacity to “read between the lines”—an essential component of successful social interactions between people.
From the article:
“Natural language is at the heart of our everyday lives. We use it to communicate complex ideas, ranging from summaries of what we’ve seen or experienced to subtle cues about our beliefs, goals, and opinions. Importantly, meaning is conveyed not just by what’s literally said but also by what’s left to the listener to infer. This ability to reason beyond what is said explicitly is crucial for efficient human-computer communications.”
Read the full article here. Way to go, Yejin!
UW CSE has assembled a superb group of faculty in NLP: in addition to Yejin, core faculty include Noah Smith and Luke Zettlemoyer, with contributions from Pedro Domingos, Oren Etzioni, and Dan Weld. Learn more about our NLP research here.