Work by academics from the School of Natural and Computing Science has been awarded the 2024 Prominent Paper Award by the Artificial Intelligence Journal.
The paper ‘Landmark-based approaches for Goal Recognition as Planning’ was written by Professor Nir Oren, Dean for Knowledge & Understanding, and Professor Felipe Meneguzzi, Chair in Computing Science; along with Dr Ramon Fraga Pereira, now working as a lecturer at the University of Manchester.
The paper, published in 2020, introduces highly efficient new technique for goal recognition – identifying what goals a human or computer agent is pursuing based on their actions – which have become fundamental to the field.
In recognising the novel goal recognition approaches it outlines, the award highlights the strength of AI research and expertise at the University.
The Artificial Intelligence Journal is a leading publication in its field. The Prominent Paper Award, which is given to one paper every year, recognises outstanding papers that are considered exceptional in their significance and impact.
The judges consider factors including whether the paper has started a significant new line of research, whether it made a major theoretical advance or influenced applications, or whether it has heavily influenced other researchers both in and outside of AI.
Previous winners have included papers which led to developments such Deep Mind's AlphaGo - the first program to beat a professional Go player - and similar papers which have underpinned fundamental advances in machine learning technologies.
The award was presented at the 33rd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) which took place in Jeju, South Korea, earlier this week (August 6).