Keynote speaker, SIAM Mini-Conference 2025
When
Where
Speaker: Ann Zabludoff, Professor, Dept of Astronomy, UofA
Title: The Future of AI in Astronomy: Our Tool, Our Partner, Our Replacement?
Abstract: What can AI do for Astronomy now? What might it do in the next few years? Most importantly, what do we want it to do? Is it simply a better tool to solve Big Data engineering problems "where we don’t know or care about the physics" or will it achieve new discoveries from extraordinarily efficient fishing expeditions or even applications of the scientific method? Will it do all that with us or without us? We do not yet know the answers to most of these questions, but we can speculate and develop strategies for leveraging the tremendous investments being made in this revolutionary technology. We can start by making friends with our applied math, computer scientist, and industry colleagues, developing a common language (perhaps using AI to communicate better), and finding research directions of mutual interest.