Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems

The Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) exists since March 18, 2011. Its Stuttgart location (the former MPI for Metals Research) is in the process of scientific reorientation; a new institute location arises in Tübingen. The MPI for Intelligent Systems belongs to the Max Planck Society, a German research institution strong in basic research.

The Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems approaches intelligent systems from the viewpoint of learning in systems with perception-action loops while these systems interact with natural, complex environments.

The institute focuses on establishing the scientific foundations of perception, action and learning through interdisciplinary and collaborative research across scales and systems. The focus is on constructing, modeling and analyzing synthetic and hybrid perception-action systems using learning and self-organization, both for handling sensory complexity and for building structural/physical complexity: to perceive and act in the world, methods of learning and inference will be crucial; to build up or grow physical structure, we need methods for creating self-organizing systems.

In the long run, the goal will be to develop a systems’ level understanding of how intelligent systems – of either technological, biological, or hybrid nature – can bootstrap themselves towards competence in their environments.

An organizing principle for the institute is the concept of a perception-action loop.

Learning the structure and optimized functionality of such feedback loops is critical for all autonomous systems. Thus, understanding the principles of perception-action loops in diverse instantiations of autonomous systems will be one common theme across the research groups of the institute.

While pursuing research at both the macro and micro scales, a key novel focus of the institute is the integration of ideas across scales.

Machines learn how to learn. To help them do so, the Max Planck Society (MPS) and the ETH Zürich opened on November 30, 2015 the Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems (CLS). The Center’s scientists want to understand what the principles of learning are, both in theory and in real machines. Among other goals they hope to develop robots which can act autonomously in an unknown, complex environment. The Center is an essential building block for the further development of the research area involving learning and intelligent systems in Baden-Württemberg. Through their cooperation the MPS and the ETH are creating scientific and personal synergies, and ensuring that European research in this field remains internationally competitive. The Center for Learning Systems organizes joint events as summer schools, workshops, retreats etc. Moreover there are joint PhD- and Postdoc projects. The CLS is headed by the two Co-Directors Prof. Dr. Thomas Hofmann, ETH Zürich und Prof. Dr. Bernhard Schölkopf, MPI for Intelligent Systems. Further members of the center are Professors and Scientists of both institutions.

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