Interfaces that Help Us Refine and Communicate Our Intent to Computers

BostonCHI’s next meeting will be on Tue, Feb 9 at 6:15 PM EST, featuring Elena Glassman.

Register here

Abstract

It can be tough to communicate what we want a computer to do on our behalf, regardless of the method: examples, demonstrations, code, etc. It can be especially tough when, half-way through specifying what we think we want, we realize that we were wrong and now we know what we want the computer to do… Many existing methods for translating human intent into executable computer programs do not sufficiently support humans in refining their own intent and communicating it to the computer, or reflecting the computer’s interpretation of that intent back to the human. In this talk, I will describe new interfaces for a particular technology, program synthesis, specifically designed to improve these critical components of the human-machine interaction loop so that humans can more quickly reach their goal: a program that behaves the way they want it to.

Bio

Elena Glassman is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Harvard Paulson School of Engineering & Applied Sciences and the Stanley A. Marks & William H. Marks Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, specializing in human-computer interaction. At MIT, she earned a PhD and MEng in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a BS in Electrical Science and Engineering. Before joining Harvard, she was a postdoctoral scholar in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, where she received the Berkeley Institute for Data Science Moore/Sloan Data Science Fellowship.

 

Schedule – EST (UTC-5)

6:15 – 6:30: Networking (via Miro)

6:30 – 7:30: Presentation by Elena Glassman

7:30 – 8:00: Q & A