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DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20260929T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20260929T120000
DTSTAMP:20260925T180129Z
SUMMARY:ESAM: William Gilpin on "Fractal Basins in Reasoning Dynamics"
UID:646785@northwestern.edu
TZID:America/Chicago
DESCRIPTION:Title: Fractal Basins in Reasoning Dynamics  Speaker: William Gilpin\, University of Texas Austin  Abstract:  Both biological and artificial intelligence perform reasoning\, in which a system repeatedly revisits and revises its solution to a problem. We frame reasoning as a search process executed by high-dimensional dynamical systems. We use this framework to show that many leading artificial intelligence models produce transient chaos and fractal basins when they encounter hard algorithmic tasks like solving mazes\, Sudoku\, or mathematical puzzles. These phenomena emerge due to reasoning becoming trapped for extended durations near saddle points\, which we show correspond to nearly-correct attempted solutions of the underlying problem. We thus find that transient chaos is a general consequence of problem hardness when modern artificial intelligence models represent tasks as dynamical systems. Our findings have broader implications for understanding biological networks and other analogue systems that perform computation.  Bio:  William Gilpin is an assistant professor of physics at UT Austin. His group studies computational nonlinear dynamics\, with particular applications to systems biology and fluid dynamics. After completing his undergraduate degree in physics at Princeton\, he received his Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford\, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard’s quantitative biology initiative. His work is currently supported by an NSF CAREER award\, a Cottrell Scholarship\, and the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative.   Zoom:  https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/98191770704  -----  To subscribe to the Applied Mathematics Colloquia List send a message to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.IT.NORTHWESTERN.EDU with the command:  SUBSCRIBE esam-seminar FirstName LastName
LOCATION:Technological Institute\, M416\, 2145 Sheridan Road\, Evanston\, IL 60208
TRANSP:OPAQUE
URL:https://planitpurple.northwestern.edu/event/646785
CREATED:20260922T050000Z
STATUS:CONFIRMED
LAST-MODIFIED:20260922T214440Z
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