AI Foundations: A Brief History and Update on the State of AI - Charlie Catlett

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not a new concept, but in recent years it has fueled amazing new capabilities, from computer vision to language processing. Developed with enormous volumes and diversity of data and unprecedented computing power, large-scale AI systems have begun to manifest emergent—unplanned, unexpected, unexplainable—capabilities. This talk covers, in four sections, the foundations for AI technology, where it has excelled, and an update on the use of AI in diverse contexts:

AI Foundations: A Brief History and Update on the State of AI
In this session, we cover, at a high level, the foundations for AI technology, where it has excelled, what are the key technology components at play, and where the technology is heading (what may come next).

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Charlie Catlett is a senior computer scientist at Argonne National Laboratory and The University of Chicago who has focused his research for 40 years in the development of the Internet and WorldWideWeb, computer security, and high-performance computing, holding scientific leadership positions at multiple universities and national laboratories. During the past decade his research has focused on the use of computational modeling and artificial intelligence (AI) embedded with sensors to create new classes of environmental measurements and urban planning capabilities. Recently he has also used AI-based data analysis to assess community vulnerability to factors ranging from communicable disease to impacts of climate change, such as flooding and extreme temperatures. He has received numerous awards for his research and leadership, including being named to Crain’s “Tech 50” leaders in Chicago in 2014, GovTech magazine’s national “25 Doers, Dreamers & Drivers” of 2016, as a Distinguished Performer in 2019 by the Board of Trustees of Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago, and was named one of the "High Performance Computing People to Watch in 2025" by HPCWire magazine. Charlie is a Computer Engineering graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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