Microsoft Research Podcast

Dr. Christopher Bishop is quite a fellow. Literally. Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Fellow of Darwin College in Cambridge, England. Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Fellow of The Royal Society. Microsoft Technical Fellow. And one of the nicest fellows you’re likely to meet! He’s also Director of the Microsoft Research lab in Cambridge, where he oversees a world-class portfolio of research and development endeavors in machine learning and AI. Today, Dr. Bishop talks about the past, present and future of AI research, explains the No Free Lunch Theorem, talks about the modern view of machine learning (or how he learned to stop worrying and love uncertainty), and tells how the real excitement in the next few years will be the growth in our ability to create new technologies not by programming machines but by teaching them to learn.

This episode first aired in March (2018)One of the most intriguing areas of machine learning research is affective computing, where scientists are working to bridge the gap between human emotions and computers. It is here, at the intersection of psychology and computer science, that we find Dr. Daniel McDuff, who has been designing systems, from hardware to algorithms, that can sense human behavior and respond to human emotions. Today, Dr. McDuff talks about why we need computers to understand us, outlines the pros and cons of designing emotionally sentient agents, explains the technology behind CardioLens, a pair of augmented reality glasses that can take your heartrate by looking at your face, and addresses the challenges of maintaining trust and privacy when we’re surrounded by devices that want to know not just what we’re doing, but how we’re feeling.  

After decades of research in processing audio signals, we’ve reached the point of so-called performance saturation. But recent advances in machine learning and signal processing algorithms have paved the way for a revolution in speech recognition technology and audio signal processing. Dr. Ivan Tashev, a Partner Software Architect in the Audio and Acoustics Group at Microsoft Research, is no small part of the revolution, having both published papers and shipped products at the forefront of the science of sound. On today’s podcast, Dr. Tashev gives us an overview of the quest for better sound processing and speech enhancement, tells us about the latest innovations in 3D audio, and explains why the research behind audio processing technology is, thanks to variations in human perception, equal parts science, art and craft.

In 1998, Microsoft Research opened a small lab in Beijing to expand its research efforts and draw on the immense high-tech talent pool in China. No one expected that only twenty years later, MSR Asia would become the dynamic organization it is today, with innovative research contributing to nearly every part of Microsoft’s business. Dr. Hsiao-Wuen Hon has watched it grow from the beginning and this year, celebrates the lab’s 20th anniversary as Managing Director, Corporate Vice President and Chairman of Microsoft’s Asia-Pacific R&D Group. On today’s podcast, Dr. Hon gives us a brief history of MSR Asia, from its humble beginnings to its significant role in the AI boom today, talks about MSR Asia’s unique talent pipeline, shares his vision for the complementary roles of machine intelligence and human wisdom, and explains why, he believes, the more progress we make in AI, the better we understand ourselves.

As traditional semiconductor technologies for computer storage scale down, everyone is looking for alternative solutions to the growing gap between the amount of data we’re capable of producing and the amount of data we’re capable of storing. While some have focused on hardware accelerators for machine learning, and others are investigating new memory technologies, Dr. Karin Strauss, a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research in Redmond, has been exploring the role of biotechnology in IT via an end-to-end system that stores digital data in DNA. On today’s podcast, Dr. Strauss talks about life at the intersection of computer science and biology which, for many, is more like the intersection of science fiction and science, and explains how the unique properties of DNA could eventually enable us to store really big data in really small places for a really long time.

  The ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius famously exhorted his pupils to study the past if they would divine the future. In 2018, we get the same advice from a decidedly more modern, but equally philosophical Bill Buxton, Principal Researcher in the HCI group at Microsoft Research. In addition to his pioneering work in computer science and design, Bill Buxton has spent the past several decades amassing a collection of more than a thousand artifacts that chronicle the history of human computer interaction for the very purpose of informing the future of human computer interaction. Today, in a wide-ranging interview, Bill Buxton explains why Marcel Proust and TS Eliot can be instructive for computer scientists, why the long nose of innovation is essential to success in technology design, why problem-setting is more important than problem-solving, and why we must remember, as we design our technologies, that every technological decision we make is an ethical decision as well.

2018 marks the 10th anniversary of Microsoft Research New England in Cambridge, Massachusetts, so it’s the perfect time to talk with someone who was there from the lab’s beginning: Technical Fellow, Managing Director and Co-founder, Dr. Jennifer Chayes. But not only does Dr. Chayes run the New England lab of MSR, she also directs two other highly renowned, interdisciplinary research labs in New York City and Montreal, Quebec. Add to that a full slate of personal research projects and service on numerous boards, committees and foundations, and you’ve got one of the busiest and most influential women in high tech. On today’s podcast, Dr. Chayes shares her passion for the value of undirected inquiry, talks about her unlikely journey from rebel to researcher, and explains how she believes her research philosophy – more botanist than boss – prepares the fertile ground necessary for important, innovative and impactful research.

Asta Roseway has a formal title. It’s Principal Research Designer in the HCI group at Microsoft Research. But she’s also been described as a conductor, an alchemist, a millennial in a Gen-Xer’s body and, in her own words, a fusionist. What’s a fusionist, you might ask? Well, you’re about to find out. On today’s podcast, Asta gives an inside look at one of the most unconventional labs at Microsoft Research. Located at the intersection of science, technology and art, it’s a lab that insists that technology, like art, should push boundaries, tell stories and feed our souls. Get ready for the unexpected because when Asta asks “what if?” you’re likely to find yourself immersed in a world of responsive clothing, smart tattoos, talking plants and even environmentally sensitive… makeup!

You may have heard the phrase, necessity is the mother of invention, but for Dr. Nicolo Fusi, a researcher at the Microsoft Research lab in Cambridge, MA, the mother of his invention wasn’t so much necessity as it was boredom: the special machine learning boredom of manually fine-tuning models and hyper-parameters that can eat up tons of human and computational resources, but bring no guarantee of a good result. His solution? Automate machine learning with a meta-model that figures out what other models are doing, and then predicts how they’ll work on a given dataset. On today’s podcast, Dr. Fusi gives us an inside look at Automated Machine Learning – Microsoft’s version of the industry’s AutoML technology – and shares the story of how an idea he had while working on a gene editing problem with CRISPR/Cas9 turned into a bit of a machine learning side quest and, ultimately, a surprisingly useful instantiation of Automated Machine Learning - now a feature of Azure Machine Learning - that reduces dependence on intuition and takes some of the tedium out of data science at the same time.

At the heart of any vibrant research community, you’ll find a diverse range of scientists. You’re also likely to find a robust internship program, like the one at Microsoft Research. This summer, MSR welcomed another stellar group of interns who had the opportunity to learn, collaborate, and network with colleagues and mentors who will impact their lives for years to come. On today’s podcast, you’ll hear the stories of three of these interns, each of whom came to Microsoft Research from a different field, with a different story and a different perspective, but all of whom share MSR’s passion for finding innovative solutions to the world’s toughest challenges.