It was great to be back at AAAI this year, especially with the conference being held in Philadelphia, PA. While there, I had the chance to present our workshop paper, Creating PDDL Models from JavaScript Using LLMs: Preliminary Results, reconnect with a bunch of people from the NRL and broader research community as a whole, and of course learned about all sorts of new research!
Two highlights for me were a survey paper — A Survey for Leveraging Large Language Models to Construct Automated Planning Models — which provided an excellent overview of how LLMs are being used to build automated planning models and getting to see Dr. George Konidaris from Brown University speak (who hands down gave my favorite presentation of the entire conference). His lab focuses on the fundamental computational processes that generate intelligence, and how they can be used to design generally-intelligent robots. I found his entire presentation extremely interesting and have since been learning more about the work he and his lab does.
Away from the conference, I also carved out a bit of time to explore the city. I visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art + Rocky Statue, Ben Franklin’s Grave — which felt fitting, since lately I’ve been working my way through The Autobiography of Ben Franklin (It’s so good…I highly recommend it) — and of course stopped by the Liberty Bell, among a few other places.
Overall, it was a fantastic experience, both personally and professionally, and a great reminder of how energizing it can be to spend time in person with colleagues and friends in the field.