The CAAI International Conference on Artificial Intelligence 2021（CICAI 2021), sponsored by the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence was successfully held in Hangzhou on June 6th. The conference included three sessions: Keynote Reports, Oral Session and Poster Exhibitions. This conference aims to establish a global international academic exchange platform to provide global scientific researchers with cross-discipline, cross-field and cross-region, to enhance the depth and breadth of academic exchanges and industrial exchanges, and to inspire new ideas, cultivate new forces, implement new ideas, integrate into new patterns, and participate in the new era.

Academician Qionghai DAI, Chairman of CAAI, Academician Deyi LI, Honorary Chairman of CAAI, Professor Harry SHUM, Honorary Vice Chairman of CAAI, Professor Songchun ZHU, Director of the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence (BIGAI), Professor Yuanchun SHI and Professor Wenwu ZHU of Tsinghua University attended the meeting. The conference was hosted by Lu FANG, Associate Professor of Tsinghua University and Chairman of CICAI 2021.

Associate Prof. Lu FANG

In his speech, Academician Qionghai DAI said: "the original intention of initiating and organizing the first International Conference on Artificial Intelligence is to establish a global international academic exchange platform to enable the AI scholars from all over the world to discuss and share their ideas unimpededly, disseminate advanced achievements in the exchange, inspire the innovative ideas in the communication, and promote the universal application of AI technology."

Academician Qionghai DAI

AI experts' achievements boost the academic exchanges

In the Keynote Report of "From Deep Learning to Deep Understanding", Professor Harry SHUM showed a few research directions for robust AI beyond deep neural networks, introduced the principle of maximal coding rate reduction developed at UC Berkeley, and the hybrid neural/symbolic approaches that use both commonsense knowledge and massive amount of data.

Prof. Harry SHUM

In the Keynote Report of "Explainable AI: How Machines Gain Justified Human Trust ", Professor Songchun ZHU explained the key issues, such as how an AI system works, when it will succeed and fail for what reasons. At the same time, Professor Songchun ZHU explained a framework called X-ToM: Explanation with Theory of Minds, which poses the explanation as an iterative dialogue process between human and AI system. In this process, human and machine learn the mental representations of each other to establish better understanding.

Prof. Songchun ZHU

At the following session of the round-table dialogue, Professor Harry SHUM, a foreign academician of the National Academy of Engineering, Academician Deyi LI of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Professor Wenwu ZHU of Tsinghua University, Professor Yuanchun SHI of Tsinghua University, Associate Professor Lu FANG of Tsinghua University, and Professor Guangtao ZHAI of Shanghai Jiaotong University brought wonderful discussions on the theme of "the future of Artificial Intelligence ".

Panel

Scholars at home and abroad compete for the paper selection

This international academic conference has attracted 307 valid submissions from China, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and other countries. After strict selection, 105 papers are finally accepted, with an acceptance rate of 34.2%. The papers cover machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, data mining, brain-inspired artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence cross-application and other directions. Finally, 15 papers with high scores are selected as oral reports, and the oral report acceptance rate is 4.8%.

Attendees are watching posters

On the same day, 15 best papers were displayed and recommended in the form of oral reports, and posters were exhibited on site. 

Oral reports

Group photo of the best paper authors

From Keynote Reports to Best Paper Sharing, this conference not only provided a professional platform for the exchange of the latest achievements of AI research from all countries, but also created a high-end academic course for researchers, practitioners, and college students, which was useful for creating a positive and healthy academic atmosphere, discovering and motivating the outstanding young talents.