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BNAIC/Benelearn conference big success

Reinforcement learning, agents and classification: these are just some of the topics researchers on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning discussed at the BNAIC/BeneLearn conference 2020. It was the first time Leiden University hosted the annually held Belgium Netherlands Artificial Intelligence Conference (BNAIC), which is organized in conjunction with the Benelux conference on Machine Learning (BeneLearn). The conference took place on the 19th and 20th of November.

A worldwide community

‘BNAIC/BeneLearn is a good opportunity for young researchers to get in touch with the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning community from the Benelux,’ explains Jan van Rijn, one of the general chairs of the conference. ‘There were papers from a diversity of countries, including Sweden, Cuba and Germany, but like previous years, the majority of papers came from the Netherlands and Belgium.’ Over four parallel sessions, a total of 62 papers were discussed. In addition, there were keynotes by Prof. Joost Batenburg (Leiden University), Dr. Tom Schaul (Google Deepmind) and Prof. Gabriele Gramelsberger (Aachen University). 

Video essays

Due to COVID-19, the two-day conference had to take place online. Papers were presented in the form of 10 minute videos, which will stay available after the conference. The end of the BNAIC featured the Business and Society afternoon, where hot issues such as the detection and blocking of hate speech on the internet and the recommendation of diverse content by algorithms were discussed with stakeholders on the AI Rat Race and people from various compagnies. The conference ended with an award ceremony, where Lesley van Hoek, Rob Saunders and Roy de Kleijn from Leiden University were awarded for presenting on of the best video essays.  

More information about the conference and the videos can be found on the website.

Text: Chris Flinterman

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