What is human creativity? How can we equip machines with such creativity?

Q　What was your motivation for joining the program, and what about the program appeals to you?

One of the major attractions of the program was its provision of monthly financial support. Also, the program brings together many interesting people from a variety of backgrounds, people who I would not usually encounter otherwise. I thought that engaging with these people would help to refine and enrich my own awareness of problems.

Q　What is your expertise and who do you want to develop it with the program?

I am interested in how systems that perform information-processing functions such as memory and learning actually achieve those functions. In concrete terms, I am hoping to identify the mathematical structures embedded in information-processing conducted by systems such as cells, organisms, and human groups, and apply them to artificial systems—machines—in order to achieve similar (or enhanced) functions.

Q　What are your future dreams and goals?

One of the most notable products of the information-processing functions of human groups is scientific knowledge. Science is the methodology whereby humanity as a whole amasses models to comprehend natural phenomena in the most simple and precise manner possible. I am fascinated by the question of how exactly humans as a group are equipped with the functions that make science possible. My current goal is to develop an understanding of the essential process of scientific discovery, currently pursued by so many humans, by transposing and restructuring it for machines (computers and robots). I believe that through this “mechanization” of science, it will be possible to extend human cognitive and experimental abilities, and accelerate the pace of scientific research itself.