Latest events

AIML Research Seminar: Adversarial attacks against machine learning models for satellite imagery

Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2025, 10:30 am - 11:15 am
Location: AIML

Satellites utilise a wide range of sensing modalities to collect data for applications such as earth observation, navigation and disaster management. Hyperspectral imagery is one such modality that captures a detailed spectral response of scenes across the electromagnetic spectrum. This type of imagery, however, generates vast amounts of data which requires processing to extract meaningful insights. To permit real-time decision making, edge computing – performed directly onboard a satellite – is used to process data before transmission to ensure only essential data is downlinked, ensuring fast response times. This is critical for time-sensitive applications including disaster detection and military surveillance. Deep neural networks (DNNs) are increasingly being used to automate this processing onboard satellites due to their ability to detect objects and anomalies faster and more accurately than traditional methods. However, DNNs are susceptible to adversarial attack. These attacks involve placing engineered objects into the scene of an image that cause deep neural networks to produce incorrect outputs. This research explores the vulnerability of DNNs to adversarial attack in satellite imagery and investigates methods to enhance the reliability of DNNs in the presence of such threats.

Centre for Augmented Reasoning (CAR) Legacy Event

Date: Fri, 30 May 2025, 9:00 am - 5:30 pm
Location: AIML

The CAR Legacy showcased the achievements and impact of the Centre for Augmented Reasoning, a significant initiative funded by the Australian Government Department of Education in 2021, which helped transform Australia's capability in Machine Learning and Computer Vision.

CMS Research Seminar: Provable Security and Verification – From Theory to Practice

Date: Thu, 29 May 2025, 1:15 pm - 3:00 pm
Location: Ingkarni Wardli

In this talk, Professor Ioana Boureanu gave an overview of her work that covered aspects of cryptographic models and proofs, as well as logic-based formal verification for security and privacy, primarily in cryptographic protocols. Professor Boureanu discussed theoretical developments as well as applied verification, highlighting their impact on standardisation processes, for instance in the payments industry and mobile networks.

Stone & Chalk Ecosystem Mixer in Artificial Intelligence

Date: Fri, 23 May 2025, 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm
Location: Stone & Chalk

The packed event was held at Stone & Chalk and was an opportunity for some of the smartest, most innovative minds in the Australian AI space to come together to network and have a bit of fun. The gathering featured tech demonstrations, limitless opportunities for collaboration, and a spirited discussion on responsible AI from AIML's own Professor Javen Qinfeng Shi, Interim Director of the Responsible AI Research Centre (RAIR).

AIML Research Seminar: VSLAM-LAB – A Comprehensive Framework for Visual SLAM Baselines and Datasets

Date: Tue, 20 May 2025, 10:30 am - 11:15 am
Location: AIML

Visual SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) research is often hindered by fragmented toolchains, inconsistent evaluation protocols, and complex system setups. In this seminar, Dr. Alejandro Fontan will present VSLAM-LAB, a unified and extensible framework designed to streamline the development, benchmarking, and deployment of Visual SLAM systems. VSLAM-LAB simplifies the end-to-end SLAM pipeline—from automated dataset downloading and formatting to standardized experiment execution and trajectory evaluation—using a single command-line interface. The framework supports a wide array of state-of-the-art SLAM methods and datasets, enabling reproducible research and facilitating fair, comprehensive comparisons.

AIML Special Presentation: AI Coexistence – Balancing Productivity and Societal Impact

Date: Tue, 13 May 2025, 10:30 am - 11:30 am
Location: AIML

Professor Mohammad Patwary explores artificial intelligence by addressing both its transformative potential and inherent risks. He frames AI deployment as essential but emphasises the need for careful evaluation throughout its lifecycle. He draws parallels between developing AI systems and nurturing human intelligence, asserting that both require similar care and accountability, discussing case studies from the Digital Innovation and Solution Centre (DISC) to demonstrate AI applications across industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, and agriculture.

AIML Special Presentation: Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Advancing Cancer Diagnosis and Prognosis

Date: Fri, 9 May 2025, 10:30 am - 11:30 am
Location: AIML

Dr Maryam Arshad explores how advanced healthcare systems around the world are integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to improve patient care. Her Fellowship focuses on identifying how these countries are addressing key challenges, such as low efficiency, poor data quality, clinician readiness, and algorithmic bias, that currently limit the effectiveness of ML tools in the UK. By examining successful international strategies, Dr Arsham aims to inform innovation and promote patient-centred, efficient healthcare within the NHS and broader UK medical community.

AIML Research Seminar: Sensing and Lasing with Multimode Fibre Optics

Date: Tue, 6 May 2025, 10:30 am - 11:30 am
Location: AIML

When light propagates in multimode optical fibres, it is confined in many orthogonal modes whose transverse profiles are propagation-invariant. This high dimensional modal space allows great flexibility in processing the output information, as well as controlling the input information for various purposes. In this talk, I will discuss a coherent suite of topics including (i) processing the output information from a multimode fibre in the context of sensing using machine learning, (ii) controlling the input information into multimode fibre as a mean of tailoring the output for laser applications, and (iii) the introduction of physical neural network, an emerging field in complex optics toward realisation of energy-efficient and low-latency machine learning.

AIML Special Presentation: Meaning and Intelligence in Language Models — From Philosophy to Appropriate LLM Responses

Date: Mon, 5 May 2025, 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Location: AIML

Language Models have been around for decades but have suddenly taken the world by storm. In a surprising third act for anyone doing NLP in the 70s, 80s, 90s, or 2000s, in much of the popular media, artificial intelligence is now synonymous with language models. In this talk, Prof Chris Manning will take a look backward at where language models came from and why they were so slow to emerge, a look inward to give some thoughts on meaning, intelligence, and what language models understand and know, and a look at some recent work on steering language models to respond well to people’s questions and commands.

AI on the Ground Seminar: Translating an AI algorithm for antenatal hydronephrosis

Mandy, Lauren, Melissa - AI on the Ground

Date: Fri, 2 May 2025, 10:30 am - 11:30 am
Location: AIML

Antenatal HN is the most common congenital anomaly, affecting up to 5% of pregnancies and identified as a dilatation of the urinary tract on prenatal imaging. While the majority of cases are physiologic and self-resolving, a subset necessitate surgical intervention. Currently, infants are monitored with serial ultrasounds and may undergo invasive and burdensome investigations, including catheterisation and radionuclide imaging, which contribute to patient distress and healthcare costs.