AI, Software & Smart Materials in Action

Software currently runs our world.  We interact with software system constantly throughout our daily lives.  It runs our phones, pays our bills, helps drive our cars, and pretty much flies our planes.  Software engineering research is concerned with better understanding how we build, evolve, and maintain software systems. These systems are built by teams of developers and evolved to address new requirements over time. Some software systems need to work correctly most of the time and some software systems need to work correctly all the time.  Getting software to work perfectly correct (in general) is a very difficult (impossible) problem.  AI can help us address some issues but is inadequate to address the hard problems.  The talk provides an understanding of the problems we face developing large software systems and why AI is not going to really help that much.

Liquid crystals are best known for displays, but they are also incredibly sensitive to their environment. In this talk, I will show how we use liquid crystals as visual sensors that respond to invisible gases by changing their molecular organization and appearance. These materials convert chemical signals into immediate optical responses, allowing us to "see" hazards without electronics. This approach enables simple, low-power sensing for safety and has already been demonstrated in field settings, including applications for firefighters, military personnel, and other real-world environments.