International Conference on Machine Learning

R.S. Michalski gives a banquet address at the 23rd International Conference on Machine Learning at Carnegie-Mellon University

On June 25-29, the 23rd International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML’06), the premier conference in this very fast growing field, was held on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University. It brought together about 500 leading machine learning researchers from 28 countries and from all continents. The very first conference in this field was also held at Carnegie Mellon, exactly 26 years ago.

On the occasion of the return of the conference to Carnegie Mellon, Professor Ryszard Michalski, who with CMU Professors Jaime Carbonell and Tom Mitchell organized the first machine learning meeting, and through publishing the first books in this area founded the field of machine learning, was asked to give a banquet address to the conference participants. In his address, he explained how he started his research on machine learning in the 70ies, in a non-existing yet field, and how the first machine learning conference was organized.

The now-thriving field of machine learning is concerned with developing computational theories and methods for implementing learning processes in computers. It is a major contributor of ideas to its younger sibling, the field of data mining and knowledge discovery. On the occasion of ICML’06, Carnegie Mellon University formally announced the opening of its Department of Machine Learning, the first in the nation. The department is chaired by Professor Tom Mitchell. At GMU, research in Machine Learning is conducted by the Machine Learning and Inference Laboratory (www.mli.gmu.edu), headed by Professor Michalski, and directly reporting to the Office of the Provost.
See photos from the ICML'06.