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--- start [2011/04/16 13:01]
c7031007 [Upcoming Events]
+++ start [2026/06/11 06:17] (current)
Justus Piater [Working With Us]
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 ====== Intelligent and Interactive Systems ======
+//**Making robots learn to perceive and act with understanding**//
-Welcome to newest computer science research group at the University of Innsbruck, directed by Justus Piater.
+At %%IIS%% we enable autonomous robots to perceive and act flexibly and robustly in unstructured environments, leveraging machine learning methods to build perceptual, motor and reasoning skills.
-Our publications will appear here once our institutional database has been set up. In the meantime, most of Justus Piater's publications can be found at his [[http://www.montefiore.ulg.ac.be/~piater/publications|previous institution]].
+We seek to answer the question: //How can we enable robots to acquire the knowledge and understanding they require to interact sensibly with unstructured environments? //
+Our research addresses complete perception-action loops, from computer vision to grasping and manipulation, using reactive algorithms and/or cognitive models.  Much of our work uses machine learning to enable robots to synthesize and improve complex and robust sensorimotor behavior with experience. Related areas of interest include human-robot interaction, image and video analysis, and visual neuroscience.
+===== Working With Us =====
+  * We are hiring [[:jobs:|1 Postdoc and 3 PhD Students in Robot Learning]].
+  * Check our thesis topics for [[theses/start|Bachelor and Master students]].
+  * [[:jobs:#notice_for_non-eueea_prospective_master_students|Notice]] for non-[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU|EU]]/[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area|EEA]] prospective Master students
+<html>
+<div style="clear:both"><br></div>
+</html>
+{{ ::iis_retreat_2024.jpg?direct&900 |}}\\
+<html>
+<div style="text-align: center;">
+  <p>Group picture taken at our 2024 retreat at Meissner Haus.</p>
+</div>
+</html>
 ===== News =====
-  * Justus Piater is an **invited speaker** at the [[http://www.roboticsconference.org/|R:SS]] Workshop on **[[http://www.willowgarage.com/workshops/2011/rss|Mobile Manipulation: Learning to Manipulate]]** in Los Angeles, 27 June 2011.
+<HTML><table><tr valign="top"><td>2026-05-07</td><td>Justus Piater is a panelist at a public discussion on <a href="https://www.uibk.ac.at/de/medien-kommunikation/kommunikation/intern/">Invited
-  * Justus Piater is lecturing at the **[[http://cogx.eu/|CogX]] 2011 Spring School** in Vienna, 27.4.--5.5.
+    expert interview on “Human-robotics relations: What does the
-  * **Inaugural Lecture -- //Antrittsvorlesung//** by Justus Piater: **14 April 2011 17:00** in the large auditorium of civil engineering -- //Großer Hörsaal der Fakultät für Bauingenieurwissenschaften//. [[https://iis.uibk.ac.at/public/Antrittsvorlesung_Justus_Piater.pdf|Einladung (Invitation, in German only)]]
+    future hold?”</a>, Innsbruck. (Public event organized by the Department of Media, Society and Communication, Universität Innsbruck)</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>2026-04-15</td><td>Justus Piater gives an invited talk <i>Some Latest Results in Robot Learning of Structure by
+    Interaction</i> at <a href="https://airov.at/2026/workshop/TactileRobotics.html">Austrian
+    Robotics Workshop</a>, Leoben. (Annual workshop of the GMAR; at AIRoV 2026)</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>2026-04-08</td><td>Justus Piater gives an invited talk <i>Generative KI: Funktionsweise, Möglichkeiten und
+    Grenzen</i> at SchulleiterInnen-Tagung „IT-Sicherheit und KI-Einsatz in
+    der Schule“, Pädagogische Hochschule Tirol. (Veranstaltung für Schulleitungen der Bildungsdirektion für Tirol) <span class="actions"><a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="showHide('newsitem2', 'Abstract')">[Abstract]</a></span><blockquote id="newsitem2Abstract" style="display:none">Generative KI-Systeme wie ChatGPT und Midjourney haben
+    die Welt im Sturm erobert. Wie können wir sie produktiv nutzen?
+    Wie können wir mit den Herausforderungen umgehen, die durch sie
+    entstehen? Ich werde diese Fragen von der technischen Seite her
+    angehen und einen Eindruck davon vermitteln, wie diese Systeme
+    funktionieren. Daraus ergeben sich ein realistisches Verständnis
+    für ihre Möglichkeiten und Grenzen sowie einige grundlegende
+    Empfehlungen für den Umgang mit ihnen im Schulbetrieb.</blockquote></td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>2025-11-19</td><td>Justus Piater gives an invited talk <i>Structural Understanding – The Grand Challenge of Robot
+    Learning</i> at <a href="https://elliit.se/news-and-events/focus-period-lund-2025/symposium/">ELLIIT Focus Period Symposium: Robot Learning</a>, Lund University. (The ELLIIT Focus Period Symposium is the highlight of the five-week focus period, during which young international scholars, ELLIIT researchers and other well-established international academics gather in Lund to work together on joint research challenges.) <span class="actions"><a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="showHide('newsitem3', 'Abstract')">[Abstract]</a></span><blockquote id="newsitem3Abstract" style="display:none">AI has made great progress in recent years, and the
+    sophistication of robots has been rising with costs falling. Yet,
+    the capabilities of AI-enabled robots are not keeping pace. I
+    argue that this is due to a lack of structural understanding by
+    current AI systems. I will discuss several lines of research in my
+    lab that seek to enable robots to generalize better and learn
+    faster thanks to explicit notions of structure.</blockquote></td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>2025-09-18</td><td>Samuele Tosatto gives an invited keynote <i>Where are all the intelligent robots? A quest for efficiency in reinforcement learning</i> at <a href="https://sarl-plus.github.io/RL-Bootcamp2025/">Reinforcement Learning Bootcamp 2025</a>, Salzburg. <span class="actions"><a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="showHide('newsitem4', 'Abstract')">[Abstract]</a></span><blockquote id="newsitem4Abstract" style="display:none">As artificial intelligence reshapes our digital world at a breathtaking pace,
+    a curious question arises: Where are all the real-world, intelligent robots?
+    While we have mastered the generation of text, images, and video by leveraging vast web-scale datasets,
+    robotics still faces a fundamental data bottleneck. Reinforcement learning (RL) offers a compelling solution,
+    enabling agents to learn autonomously by collecting their own experience.
+    However, the path to autonomy is often blocked by the staggering inefficiency of current RL algorithms,
+    which can require millions of trials to master simple tasks. This talk embarks on a quest to tackle this
+    efficiency problem head-on. I will argue that a crucial step toward unlocking the potential of
+    robot learning lies in a two-pronged approach: first, by developing statistically efficient
+    algorithms that can reuse data by leveraging sound off-policy techniques, and second,
+    by designing better action representations for physical, real-world agents.
+    By making our algorithms more efficient and refining their core hypotheses,
+    we can accelerate the journey toward real embodied artificial intelligence.</blockquote></td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>2025-07-15</td><td>Justus Piater gives an invited keynote <i>Making robots learn to perceive and act with
+    understanding</i> at <a href="https://www.uibk.ac.at/en/congress/multibody2025/">The
+th ECCOMAS Thematic Conference on Multibody Dynamics</a>, Innsbruck. <span class="actions"><a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="showHide('newsitem5', 'Abstract')">[Abstract]</a></span><blockquote id="newsitem5Abstract" style="display:none">The flexibility and robustness of current robots is
+    limited by their lack of understanding of their environment. For
+    this reason, most robots operate in controlled environments.
+    Machine learning can circumvent modeling problems but introduces
+    new problems of generalizing from examples. How can robots acquire
+    understanding (of structure, function, causality, etc.) that
+    allows them to generalize from sparse experience? Motivated by
+    shortcomings of current machine-learning methods, I will argue
+    that &quot;understanding&quot; is a meaningful notion in AI that reaches
+    beyond prediction and control. I will discuss examples of our
+    recent work on learning visual relational concepts, extrapolation
+    of learned movements beyond the training distribution, learning of
+    symbolic concepts and rules, and structure-driven skill learning
+    from sensorimotor experience. Our long-term objective is to
+    improve abstraction, generalization, robustness, and ultimately
+    explainability of robot perception and action.</blockquote></td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>2025-07-11</td><td>Justus Piater and Alejandro Agostini give an invited talk <i>Learning Symbols and Abstractions in Robot Planning</i> at <a href="https://www.unibz.it/en/events/abstraction-language-science-engineering">Abstraction:
+    Language - Science - Engineering</a>, Bolzano. (International Workshop)</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>2025-04-25</td><td>Simon Haller-Seeber gives an invited talk <i>AI-powered tools for real-time transcription and translation in action: A self-hosted open-source framework for digital spaces.</i> at <a href="https://www.uibk.ac.at/de/medien/veranstaltungen/tagungen/medien-wissen-bildung-2025/">Medien - Wissen - Bildung 2025: Streifzüge an den Nahtstellen von Medien, Bildung und Philosophie</a>, Universität Innsbruck.</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>2025-04-10</td><td>Simon Haller-Seeber gives an invited keynote <i>Hands-on Approaches to Software, Robotics, and AI: Exploring Experiments and Science in Action</i> at <a href="https://iis.uibk.ac.at/public/simon/ECER-2025/">European Conference on Educational Robotics (ECER 2025)</a>, HTL Anichstrasse.</td></tr><tr valign="top"><td>2025-04-10</td><td>Simon Haller-Seeber and Christopher Kelter teach a tutorial <i>Was sind Roboter, was macht eine KI? Entwickle deine eigene KI und programmiere unsere Minibots</i> at Campustag BG/BRG Sillgasse, Universität Innsbruck.</td></tr></table></HTML>
+[[news|Older News]]
+===== Postal Address =====
-===== Press =====
+University of Innsbruck\\
+Department of Computer Science\\
+Technikerstr. 21a\\
+Innsbruck\\
+Austria
-  * [[http://www.uibk.ac.at/ipoint/news/2011/schlaue-roboter-im-haushalt.html.de|Schlaue Roboter im Haushalt]] ([[http://www.uibk.ac.at/ipoint/|iPoint]] 13.04.2011, in German)
+**How to find us:** See the [[https://www.uibk.ac.at/informatik/kontakt/anfahrt.html.en|directions]].
-  * [[http://www.uibk.ac.at/forschung/magazin/5/artikel/neuberufung.pdf|Roboter lernen lernen]] ([[http://www.uibk.ac.at/forschung/magazin/|zukunft forschung]] [[http://www.uibk.ac.at/forschung/magazin/5/|2/2010]], in German)
+**Legal Notice:** See the [[:impressum|Impress and Privacy Notice]].

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