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News 21-06-2022 Foundation stone laid for new Cyber Valley building Structure to become part of the Innovation Campus in Tübingen Bernhard Schölkopf Michael Black

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Perceiving Systems Award 21-06-2022 Vassilis Choutas, Lea Müller, Chun-Hao Paul Huang, Siyu Tang, Dimitris Tzionas, and Michael J. Black were noimated for the Best Paper Award at CVPR 2022 for the paper: "Accurate 3D Body Shape Regression using Metric and Semantic Attributes".

Perceiving Systems Award 21-06-2022 Naureen Mahmood, Talha Zaman, and Michael J. Black: Max Planck Foundation Prize of the Stifterverband, 2022 Science Prize in the Entrepreneurship category, for the Meshcapade GmbH team, in recognition of this successful spin-off and the particularly high impact on society. Berlin, June 21, 2022.

Learning and Dynamical Systems News 20-06-2022 Presentation at RSS We will present our work on learning-based iterative control at RSS 2022.

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News 20-06-2022 Presentation at RSS We will present our work on learning-based iterative control at RSS 2022. Our article can be found in the online proceedings: http://www.roboticsproceedings.org/rss18/p029.html

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News 20-06-2022 Presentation at RSS We will present our work on learning-based iterative control at RSS 2022. Our article can be found in the online proceedings: http://www.roboticsproceedings.org/rss18/p029.html

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News 20-06-2022 Presentation at RSS We will present our work on learning-based iterative control at RSS 2022. Our article can be found in the online proceedings: http://www.roboticsproceedings.org/rss18/p029.html

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News 20-06-2022 Presentation at RSS We will present our work on learning-based iterative control at RSS 2022. Our article can be found in the online proceedings: http://www.roboticsproceedings.org/rss18/p029.html

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News 20-06-2022 Presentation at RSS We will present our work on learning-based iterative control at RSS 2022. Our article can be found in the online proceedings: http://www.roboticsproceedings.org/rss18/p029.html

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News 20-06-2022 Presentation at RSS We will present our work on learning-based iterative control at RSS 2022. Our article can be found in the online proceedings: http://www.roboticsproceedings.org/rss18/p029.html

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Organizational Leadership and Diversity Award 17-06-2022 EURAM Research Grant Ksenia Keplinger

News 17-06-2022 Ksenia Keplinger and Marina Chugunova have been awarded a EURAM Research Grant 2022 Ksenia Keplinger (MPI for Intelligent Systems)and Marina Chugunova (MPI for Innovation and Competition) are winners of the EURAM Research Grant 2022 for their project on the use of artificial intelligence in HR processes. Ksenia Keplinger

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News 17-06-2022 Ksenia Keplinger's paper won the EURAM 2022 Most Inspirational Paper Award Four papers have been nominated for the EURAM 2022 Most Inspirational Paper Award. The paper "Looking through the Kuhnian lens: The structure of scientific misconduct and the four futures of management" authored by Ksenia Keplinger and Russell Cropanzano was a winner in this nomination. Congratulations! Ksenia Keplinger

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Organizational Leadership and Diversity Award 17-06-2022 Most Inspirational Paper Award Ksenia Keplinger

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Empirical Inference Award 16-06-2022 Annika Buchholz and Cedric Engels (Doktor Whatson), Fast Forward Science Award, 1st price in the category Tandem.

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 07-06-2022 Work on chiral nanostructures awarded RSC Horizon Prize Winner Royal Society of Chemistry 2022 Faraday Division Horizon Prize We are part of a team of scientists that has won the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Faraday Division Horizon Prize for the discovery of chiroptical harmonic scattering, theoretically predicted in 1979 and demonstrated experimentally 40 years later. Our colleagues are in the UK and Belgium - thank you. Jeong Hyeon-Ho Johannes Sachs Peer Fischer

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Perceiving Systems Appointment 01-06-2022 Dimitrios Tzionas becomes Assistant Professor at the University of Amsterdam

News 01-06-2022 Wenqi Hu appointed new Cyber Valley Group Leader Roboticist at the MPI-IS to advance the research field of autonomous small-scale bioinspired machines Wenqi Hu

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News 27-05-2022 Amazon and Max Planck Society establish Science Hub Artificial intelligence (AI) is the focus of joint research at the Science Hub. Amazon's cooperation with a German research institution is the first of its kind outside of the U.S. With their top researchers, the cooperation partners bundle special knowledge and advantages from science and industry to jointly advance AI research in Germany

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Haptic Intelligence Award 25-05-2022 Alexis E. Block, Hasti Seifi, Sammy Christen, Bernard Javot, and Katherine J. Kuchenbecker win Best Demo at EuroHaptics 2022 for their demonstration of "HuggieBot: a human-sized haptic interface" Alexis Block Hasti Seifi Bernard Javot Katherine J. Kuchenbecker

Haptic Intelligence News 22-05-2022 HI at EuroHaptics 2022 Director Katherine J. Kuchenbecker and sixteen other members of the MPI-IS Haptic Intelligence (HI) Department presented seven of their current research projects at the 2022 EuroHaptics conference, which was held on-site and in-person from May 22 to 25, 2022, in Hamburg, Germany. EuroHaptics is a major international conference on haptics and touch-enabled computer applications and is the primary European meeting for researchers in this field. Together, the HI team presented two workshop talks, one workshop poster, two oral session talks, and three hands-on demonstrations, winning one award. Two HI members also chaired sessions of the conference. Katherine J. Kuchenbecker Gokhan Serhat Hasti Seifi Yasemin Vardar David Gueorguiev Gunhyuk Park Bernard Javot Saekwang Nam Farimah Fazlollahi Alexis Block

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News 13-05-2022 Rebecca C. Reisch becomes first managing director of Cyber Valley GmbH Science Minister Theresia Bauer: “Cyber Valley GmbH as a central hub in the network will bring AI players from science and industry together even better” Minister of Finance Dr. Danyal Bayaz: “Artificial intelligence is a future source of our prosperity” Prof. Michael J. Black: “Advancing the vision of Cyber Valley as a leading hub for research and entrepreneurship in AI” Michael Black

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Physical Intelligence News 12-05-2022 New imaging method makes tiny medical robots visible in the body Microrobots have the potential to revolutionize medicine. Researchers at the Max Planck ETH Centre for Learning Systems have now developed an imaging technique that for the first time recognises cell-sized microrobots individually and at high resolution in a living organism. This is an important step towards precise control of the robots and their clinical translation. Paul Wrede Metin Sitti

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Learning and Dynamical Systems News 09-05-2022 Invited talk at the NCCR Symposium The NCCR Symposium is biannual symposium covering a broad range of topics in relation to NCCR Automation research.

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Dynamic Locomotion News 06-05-2022 Felix Ruppert defends his PhD research Felix very successfully defended his PhD research. Felix Ruppert

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Empirical Inference Award 04-05-2022 Zhijing Jin, Future of Life Institute, Vitalik Buterin PhD Fellowship in AI Existential Safety

Empirical Inference Award 04-05-2022 Zhijing Jin, Open Philanthropy AI Fellowship

Empirical Inference News 02-05-2022 BLOG - Three Max-Planck Institutes join forces to develop a next generation contact tracing system A blog post by Heiner Kremer, Ph.D. student in the Empirical Inference Department at MPI-IS In a recent work published at Nature Scientific Reports, researchers from the Max-Planck Institutes for Intelligent Systems, Software Systems, and Security and Privacy as well as other institutions joined forces to devise PanCast, a novel privacy-preserving and inclusive system for epidemic risk assessment and notification. Heiner Kremer Bernhard Schölkopf

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Physical Intelligence Appointment 01-05-2022 Erdost Yildiz has been appointed to Global Members Committee of the Association for Research on Vision and Ophthalmology Erdost Yildiz

Physical Intelligence Award 01-05-2022 Tianlu Wang, Hyeong-Joon Joo, Wenqi Hu, Christoph Keplinger, and Metin Sitti received the Best Poster Award in the Gordon Research Conference on Robotics Tianlu Wang Hyeong-Joon Joo Wenqi Hu Christoph M. Keplinger Metin Sitti

Empirical Inference Award 29-04-2022 Annika Buchholz, 2nd price at the GeneDisco Challenge (presented at ICLR 2022)

Rationality Enhancement Award 28-04-2022 NHB Article Nature Human Behaviour article on the computational mechanisms of human planning

Physical Intelligence News 26-04-2022 Microrobot collectives display versatile movement patterns System capable of quick transitions between behaviors Collective behavior and swarm patterns are found everywhere in nature. Robots can also be programmed to act in swarms. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Cornell University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University have developed collectives of microrobots, which they can move in every formation they wish. The research project was published in Nature Communications. Gaurav Gardi Wendong Wang Metin Sitti

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Modern Magnetic Systems News 13-04-2022 Flexible Quantum sieve filters the fuel of Starship Enterprise Deuterium, the heavy brother of hydrogen, is considered a promising material of the future – because of its wide range of applications: in science, for energy generation, or in the production of pharmaceuticals. However, the extraction of deuterium from its natural isotope mixture has so far been complex and expensive. With a porous material developed at the Technische Universität Dresden, this could soon be done more efficiently and cost-effectively. The new method has now been published in the scientific journal "Science Advances". Michael Hirscher

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Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems Appointment 01-04-2022 Peer Fischer will become Full Professor at University of Heidelberg

Dynamic Locomotion News 31-03-2022 Emre Cemal Goenen joins DLG We welcome Emre Cemal Goenen as new PhD candidate researcher at DLG. Emre Cemal Gönen

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Haptic Intelligence News 31-03-2022 Otto Hahn Medal awarded to Alexis E. Block The Max Planck Society honors Block with this prestigious award for her fundamental and innovative research in the field of human-robot interaction through the creation and evaluation of intelligent hugging robots. Alexis Block Katherine J. Kuchenbecker

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Physical Intelligence News 29-03-2022 Meng Li selected to join the 71st Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting The postdoctoral researcher in the Physical Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart is one of 611 young scientists from across the world who are given the opportunity for a week of scientific exchange with some of the world’s greatest minds. Meng Li Metin Sitti

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Perceiving Systems News 28-03-2022 Max Planck spin-off Meshcapade wins new startup award Newly established prize by the Max Planck Society and the Stifterverband aims to promote start-up culture in science Naureen Mahmood Talha Zaman Michael Black

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Empirical Inference Award 22-03-2022 Julius von Kügelgen, Google Fellowship in Machine Learning

Haptic Intelligence Award 22-03-2022 Ravali Gourishetti and KJK win an honorable mention for their IEEE Transactions on Haptics short paper at the IEEE Haptics Symposium Ravali Gourishetti Katherine J. Kuchenbecker

Rationality Enhancement News 21-03-2022 Our RLDM abstract got accepted! Our article on ''What to learn next? Aligning gamification rewards to long-term goals using reinforcement learning'' has been accepted at RLDM 2022. Congratulations Reena, Lovis, Victoria, and Falk! Nowadays, more people can access digital educational resources than ever before. However, access alone is often not sufficient for learners to fulfil their learning goals. To support motivation, learning environments are often gamified, meaning that they offer points for interacting with them. But gamification can add to learners’ tendencies to choose learning activities in a short-sighted manner. An example for a short-sighted choice bias is the preference for an easy task offering a quick sense of accomplishment (and in gamified environments often a quick accumulation of points) over a harder task offering to make real progress. The concept of optimal brain points demonstrates that methods from the field of reinforcement learning, specifically reward shaping, allow us to align short-term rewards for learning choices with their expected long-term benefit in a learning context. Building on that work, we here present a scalable approach to supporting self-directed learning in digital learning environments applicable to real-world educational games. It can motivate learners to choose the learning activities that are most beneficial for them in the long run. This is achieved by incentivizing each learning activity in a way that reflects how much progress can be made by completing it and how thatprogress relates to their learning goal. Specifically, the approach entails modelling how learners choose between learning activities as a Markov Decision Process and applying methods from reinforcement learning to compute which learning choices optimize the learners progress based on their current knowledge. We specify how our developed method can be applied to the English-learning App “Dawn of Civilisation”. We further present the first evaluation of the approach in a controlled online experiment with a simplified learning task, which showed that the derived incentives can significantly improve both learners’ choice behaviour and their learning outcomes. Reena Pauly Lovis Heindrich Victoria Amo Falk Lieder

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Dynamic Locomotion News 16-03-2022 BirdBot is energy-efficient thanks to nature as a model A team of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and the University of California, Irvine constructed a robot leg that, like its natural model, is very energy efficient. BirdBot benefits from a foot-leg coupling through a network of muscles and tendons that extends across multiple joints. In this way, BirdBot needs fewer motors than previous legged robots and could, theoretically, scale to large size. On March 16th, the researchers will publish their work in Science Robotics. Alexander Badri-Spröwitz Alborz Aghamaleki Sarvestani Metin Sitti

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Dynamic Locomotion 16-03-2022 BirdBot robot published in Science Robotics Our work with BirdBot robot is finalished published in Science Robotics. Alborz Aghamaleki Sarvestani Alexander Badri-Spröwitz

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Haptic Intelligence Award 15-03-2022 Former doctoral student Alexis E. Block is selected to receive the Max Planck Society's Otto Hahn Medal for her doctoral dissertation; she is the first doctoral student from MPI-IS to win this prize from the new research direction of intelligent systems Alexis Block

Rationality Enhancement News 15-03-2022 New article on AI-powered boosting Our work „Boosting human decision-making with AI-generated decision aids" is now available on Arvix. We extend our method for automated discovery and description of planning strategies via #XRL, and show that it can help people make better, more farsighted decisions. Frederic Becker Julian Skirzynski Falk Lieder

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Haptic Intelligence Award 10-03-2022 Doctoral student Mayumi Mohan wins third place at the HRI 2022 Student Elevator Pitch Competition Mayumi Mohan

Empirical Inference Award 08-03-2022 Vincent Stimper, Award for the best Master's Degree in Physics 2019 from the Patrons Association for Physics at the TU Munich

Dynamic Locomotion News 01-03-2022 Abhishek Chatterjee joins DLG Abhishek Chatterjee joins as postdoc researcher. Welcome at DLG! Abhishek Chatterjee

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Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 01-03-2022 Dr. Hannah-Noa Barad appointed Assistant Professor at Bar Ilan University Congratulations and good luck to Dr. Barad! Congrats and good luck to Hannah-Noa Barad, who was a Minerva Fellow and Postdoctoral Fellow in the Group. Hannah will join the Department of Chemistry at Bar Ilan University, Israel, as an Assistant Professor. Best of luck and lots of success! Hannah-Noa Barad

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