The Boston Computation Club is a small seminar group focused on mathematical computer science, and computational mathematics. Its name is plagiarized from the L...
01/10/25: Combining Causal Inference and Knowledge Graphs with Brook Santangelo and John Sterrett
Today Brook Santangelo and John Sterrett
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01/04/25: Hacking GenAI with LLM Red Teaming and Beyond with Gaspard Baye
Gaspard Baye is a Cyber AI Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where he researches AI-driven offensive and defensive security applications. Today Gaspard joined us to present "Hacking GenAI with LLM Red Teaming and Beyond" based on his recent DefCon talk. This was a really fun event with a great Q&A. Thanks to Jacob from the Trust Lab for hosting!
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11/30/24: LB4TL: A Smooth Semantics for Temporal Logic to Train Neural Feedback Controllers with Navid Hashemi
Navid Hashemi recently defended his PhD at USC and is about to begin a post-doc at Vanderbilt. His research focuses on the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Temporal Logics, with applications in Formal Verification of Learning Enabled Systems and Neurosymbolic Reinforcement Learning. Today Navid joined us for a really exciting presentation about his work on metrizable logics for reinforcement learning, and a technique for verification thereof based on the over-approximation of reachable sets using ReLU.
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11/17/24: When Static Analysis Meets Large Language Models with Chengpeng Wang
Chengpeng Wangworking with Prof. Xiangyu Zhang. His research focuses on program analysis, especially software analysis, and in particular how existing analysis techniques intersect with emerging approaches from AI such as Large Language Models. Today Chengpeng joined us to talk about his recent NeurIPS paper proposing a novel static analysis technique based on LLMs. The technique is very interesting and highly informed by prior works in the static analysis space, but leverages LLMs as a kind of "oracle" to solve problems which, when handled statically, quickly become untenable. This was a really interesting talk and we're very greatful that Chengpeng took time out of his Sunday afternoon to talk to us!
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10/05/24: Abuse-Resistant Location Tracking: Balancing Privacy and Safety in the Offline Finding Ecosystem with Harry Eldridge
Harry Eldridge is a Cryptography PhD student at Johns Hopkins, advised by Abhishek Jain and Matthew Green. His research (so far) touches on security and privacy implications of commodity hardware, which is a fascinating topic deserving of the mathematically disciplined, cryptographically informed approach his lab takes to such problems. Today Harry joined us to talk about his research into the problem of AirTag stalking, and how it can be ameliorated, while retaining acceptable performance, through cryptographic protocols. This was a very interesting talk with serious, real-world implications, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
The Boston Computation Club is a small seminar group focused on mathematical computer science, and computational mathematics. Its name is plagiarized from the London Computation Club. Boston Computation Club meetings occur roughly every other week, on weekends, around 5pm EDT (modulo speaker availability). The usual format is a 20m presentation followed by 40m of discussion. Some, but not all, meetings are posted on YouTube and in podcast form.