attempto online - Research
06.12.2023
Tübingen alumnus Robert Geirhos receives 2023 ELLIS PhD Award
Recognition of outstanding work on how machines see the world
University of Tübingen alumnus Dr. Robert Geirhos has been named a recipient of the 2023 ELLIS PhD Award. The award recognizes outstanding research in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
In his research at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Tübingen and the International Max Planck Research School for Intelligent Systems, Mr. Geirhos pioneered the development of new methods and datasets to better understand how machines see the world by comparing them to human visual perception. This comparative approach has led to a number of discoveries.
For instance, unlike humans, machines can be fooled to mistake a truck for a cat by painting a fur pattern on the truck’s surface (“texture bias”, a tendency to recognize objects by their texture rather than shape like humans). Furthermore, machines often take simple shortcuts instead of learning the intended solution. Understanding and fixing machine failures is essential for ensuring the safety and reliability of AI systems.
“I am honored to receive the ELLIS PhD Award,” said Geirhos. “This award is a recognition of the importance of understanding how machines make decisions, when and why they fail, and how similar they are to human perception. I am deeply grateful to my advisors and collaborators - most importantly Prof. Felix Wichmann, Prof. Matthias Bethge and Wieland Brendel - and to my colleagues for their support. Tübingen is a fantastic place to perform interdisciplinary research at the intersection of Cognitive Science and Machine Learning.”
The ELLIS PhD Award is awarded annually to one female and one male researcher by the ELLIS Society. ELLIS is short for “European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems”, a European network of research institutions dedicated to promoting excellence in European research in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. The award consists of a €2,500 prize sponsored by the Kühborth Stiftung GmbH.
Dr. Geirhos received the award at the ELLIS General Assembly on December 5th, 2023, where he gave a brief overview of his PhD research. He is continuing his research as a Research Scientist at Google DeepMind, located in Toronto.
Felix Wichmann
Neural Information Processing Group, University of Tübingen