![Photo of Forest Agostinelli](/about/offices_and_divisions/research/images/ai-agostinelli_forest-124x124.jpg)
Forest Agostinelli, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, College of Engineering and Computing
Forest Agostinelli is an AI expert with the Artificial Intelligence Institute of UofSC where he researches the use of explainable AI to discover new knowledge. While many AI algorithms can perform remarkably well on tasks like protein folding, medical image analysis, game playing and puzzle solving, the “thought process” of these AI methods is unintelligible to humans. This creates a lack of trust between humans and AI, and limits human capability to make new discoveries using AI. Dr. Agostinelli’s research attempts find ways to bridge this explainability gap using the Rubik’s cube as a case study. His research aims to build a positive feedback loop where humans can learn from AI and AI can learn from humans. Agostinelli emphasizes that AI’s power to automate helpful tasks like video captioning can also be used to make destructive activities like surveillance and war easier.