AI Colloquium with Prof. Edward A. Lee on “Is Information Digital? A Defense of Reality”

On Thursday, March 5, 2026, Edward A. Lee from the University of California, Berkeley will give a presentation on “Is Information Digital? A Defense of Reality” at TU Dortmund University.

About the AI Colloquium

The AI Colloquium, organized by the Lamarr Institute, the Research Center Trustworthy Data Science and Security (RC Trust) and the Center for Data Science & Simulation at TU Dortmund University (DoDas), provides a platform for leading researchers to present groundbreaking work in the field of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. These 90-minute sessions, unlike other colloquia, focus on interactive dialog and international collaboration and include one-hour lectures and 30-minute Q&A sessions. The colloquium will be held mainly in English. The hybrid format of the colloquium ensures that all interested parties can participate either in person or online via Zoom.

About the Talk

Recent progress in artificial intelligence has largely been driven by systems trained on large collections of digital data. At the same time, advances in AI systems that operate reliably in the physical world have been more limited.In this talk, Edward A. Lee addresses a fundamental question: Is information inherently digital? He examines the difference between learning from recorded data and learning through direct interaction with the physical world, drawing on information theory and the foundations of computing. If aspects of reality cannot be fully represented in digital form, this has consequences for how we understand computation and for the future development of AI systems.

About the Speaker

Edward A. Lee is Professor of the Graduate School and Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) at the University of California at Berkeley, where he has been on the faculty since 1986. He is also co-founder of Xronos Inc. and BDTI, Inc. He is the author of seven books, some with several editions and translations, including two for a general audience, and hundreds of papers and technical reports. Lee has delivered hundreds of keynotes and other invited talks at venues worldwide and has graduated 40 PhD students.

Professor Lee’s research studies cyber-physical systems, which integrate physical dynamics with software and networks. His focus is on the use of deterministic models as a central part of the engineering toolkit for such systems. He is the director of iCyPhy, the Berkeley Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems Research Center. From 2005-2008, he served as Chair of the EE Division and then Chair of the EECS Department at UC Berkeley. He has led the development of several influential open-source software packages, notably Ptolemy and Lingua Franca.