We are pleased to announce that Anthony G. Cohn, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Professor of Computer Science at the University of Leeds, has officially joined NAAI. This honor is not only a pinnacle recognition of Professor Cohn's academic career, but also highlights his irreplaceable position in promoting the deep integration of AI theory with complex real-world problems.

Professor Anthony G. Cohn is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Alan Turing Institute, Chartered Engineer, Chartered IT Professional, AAAI Fellow, ECCAI Fellow, AISB Fellow, IET Fellow, BCS Fellow, and also a Professor at the School of Computer Science at the University of Leeds. Professor Anthony G. Cohn served as a distinguished guest professor and senior foreign expert at Tongji University in Shanghai, China from 2018 to 2021, and was awarded the Donald Walker Outstanding Service Award in 2015 and the AAAI Outstanding Service Award in 2012.

Professor Anthony G. Cohn is one of the most influential scholars in the field of artificial intelligence, with his research centered on "making machines understand the world" and dedicated to solving the fundamental problem of how intelligent systems formalize, reason, and utilize human common sense knowledge.

The founder of knowledge representation and reasoning

Professor Cohn's Qualitative Spatial Reasoning (QSR) theory, proposed in the 1980s, fundamentally changed the way machines perceive spatial relationships. The RCC (Region Connection Calculus) model he developed describes the logical relationships between spatial objects (such as connections, inclusions, and separations) through topological methods, becoming a core theoretical tool in the fields of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), robot navigation, and autonomous driving. In 2020, he was awarded the IJCAI John McCarthy Research Excellence Award at the Nobel Prize level in the field of artificial intelligence for his research, which the jury described as "endowing machines with human like spatial intuition".

2. Pioneers of interdisciplinary integration practice

From geological resource modeling to smart city design, Professor Cohn's theory deeply empowers real-life scenarios:

-The spatial ontology framework developed by its team in collaboration with the British Geological Survey has significantly improved the accuracy of oil and gas reservoir prediction;

-In the field of robotics, his proposed dynamic environment modeling technology has been applied to the path planning of Mars probes, assisting NASA in completing complex terrain autonomous obstacle avoidance tasks;

-As the Chief Scientist of the EU Multi Country Joint Project, his leadership in cognitive vision system research has driven the intelligent revolution of industrial quality inspection and medical image analysis.

3. Early advocates of artificial intelligence ethics

In the early stages of the AI technology explosion, Professor Cohn called for interpretability to be embedded at the core of knowledge representation. He proposed to combine formal logic with human understandable semantic networks, providing a transparent reasoning paradigm for high-risk AI applications such as medical diagnosis and judicial decision-making. This idea directly influenced the development of technical standards for the EU's Artificial Intelligence Act.

Honor is equal: multiple crowns in the global academic community

Professor Cohn's achievements span across academia, industry, and policy, and his resume can be regarded as an "AI Honorary Encyclopedia":

-Top academic fellows: Collecting the titles of AAAI, EURAI, BCS, IET and other seven authoritative global academic fellows, covering the entire field of artificial intelligence, computer science and engineering;

-National level academicians: Academicians of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the European Academy of Sciences, highly recognized for their "theoretical and applied breakthroughs";

-International Grand Slam Awards: From IJCAI Lifetime Achievement Award to Humboldt Research Award, its academic influence spans across three continents: Europe, America, and Asia;

-Strategic academic leader: served as a member of the IJCAI Council for over 20 years and as the founding chairman of the International Conference on Space Information Theory (COSIT), built a global academic community in the field of spatial reasoning.

Educators and Global Collaboration Bridge

Professor Cohn has always adhered to the belief of "knowledge knows no borders" and promoted cross-border collaboration in AI research

-Academic Inheritance: During his 40 years of teaching at the University of Leeds, he has trained over a hundred top scholars, with disciples spread throughout Cambridge University MIT、 Top universities such as Stanford, and many people have become CTOs of multinational technology companies;

-China's Deep Connection: From 2018 to 2021, he was appointed as a distinguished guest professor and senior foreign expert at Tongji University, leading the construction of the Sino British Joint Laboratory and helping China's research in the field of space artificial intelligence leap forward;

-Young Scientist Mentor: As a recipient of the European Union's Marie Curie Prize, he has guided over 30 young scholar programs, delivering a large number of interdisciplinary innovative talents to the European AI community.

Forward looking: A New Era of Knowledge Driven AI

In today's era where ChatGPT has sparked a wave of generative AI, Professor Cohn's research appears to have even more strategic significance. He always emphasized, "Unrestricted data-driven models are like travelers without maps. Only by combining them with symbolic knowledge can AI truly understand the world The neural symbol fusion system recently explored by its team is providing a new paradigm for cutting-edge fields such as autonomous driving and metaverse construction.

END

The election of Professor Anthony G. Cohn marks NAAI's firm support for the knowledge centric AI approach. In this era dominated by big data and deep learning, his academic legacy is like a lighthouse, reminding the scientific community that only by deeply integrating the rigor of human logic with the computing power of machines can we reach the promised land of General Artificial Intelligence (AGI).