inside the mind of a Techno-maniac

Larry Yaeger is a high-tech hero. \nHe built the voice for Koko the gorilla, appeared in "Terminator 2," worked as a scientific consultant and graphic artist in Hollywood, built one of the best-known artificial life simulations (PolyWorld, a computational ecosystem) and has done pioneering work on artificial intelligence. He also spearheaded computational fluid dynamic flow studies over space shuttles and submarines in the beginning of his career.\nMost recently, though, Yaeger has been Apple's technical lead in developing its state-of-the-art handwriting recognition system, software that features prominently in the newest version of operating system software.\nA bushy, silver-haired fellow, Yaeger is also a new professor in the School of Informatics.\nRobert Goldstone, a psychology professor as well as a colleague and friend, explained that even while working for Apple, Yaeger telecommuted from Brown County for years.\n"Larry has been highly-connected to the cognitive science community at IU. He will be an exciting, knowledgeable teacher," Goldstone said. "He has a rare blend of theoretical knowledge and practical savvy."\nBefore IU, Yaeger's career sat with Apple. He is a Distinguished Scientist -- the corporation's highest position up the technological tract.\n"He is an expert on computer programming, artificial intelligence, neural networks and artificial life," Goldstone said.\nYaeger's years at Apple have also given him grounded expertise in making large-scale systems actually work. Very generally, his job as a researcher is to analyze very-complex problems and to use computers to solve and simplify them. Yaeger is currently getting acclimated to academia and will begin teaching an artificial intelligence and artificial life topics course next semester.\nHis reason for coming to IU is purely practical -- he has lived in Brown County for the last eight years.\n"I love the vibrancy of Bloomington. It's just been a magical experience at IU ... and I wouldn't miss Lotus Fest for anything," Yaeger said. "More significantly, IU is allowing me to pursue the research directions I'm most interested in."\nYaeger has an unabated interest in artificial intelligence -- a science which has been both glorified and vilified over the years.\n"In 'Terminator 2,' (artificial intelligence) led to terminators," he said. "In real life, I think machines will always be interdependent with us."\nOn the lab scene set of director James Cameron's science fiction film, Yaeger's video footage of his simulated ecology and organisms led Cameron to tell the actor (Mike Dyson) that he was playing Yaeger.\n"That's a dubious honor," Yaeger said. "Seeing as that character was out to destroy the world and is (supposedly) playing me. So I try to approach things responsibly with that forewarning."\nThe automatic handwriting recognizer is another story, as it has a bright future. \nAt its core is a neural network character classifier. In other words, it takes what is written and turns it into plain text.\n"The original Apple Newton PDA (personal digital assistant) behaved very poorly, and was parodied in the Doonesbury comic strip," Yaeger said.\nYaeger is quick to note he had nothing to do with that first generation of the technology.\n"I kept a copy of that Doonesbury on my wall as reminder and incentive to do better," he said. "I was either lucky or good, but I got it (the second generation) to work."\nWith handwriting recognition, he went so far to say it will play a greater role -- along with speech recognition -- as the technology improves.\n"For class situations, for example, the ability to hand out electronic notes and for students to annotate these, draw their own diagrams and to add explanatory text would seem to be incredibly invaluable and a natural way of working," he said.\nThis semester, Yaeger cannot be found in the classroom, but his days are a mix of research and meetings. He hopes to do a bit of writing for publication soon, and while this is most rewarding for him, he expects that to change.\n"I'm looking forward to 'infecting' students' minds -- to teaching and getting people interested in ideas so they can run farther with them than I'll be able to," Yaeger said.\nAndy Clark, professor of logic and metaphysics at Edinburgh University-Scotland, and past director of cognitive science at IU, said that along with his scientific claims to fame, Yaeger is a huge science-fiction movie buff. \n"Larry has the largest video/film collection I have ever seen, in all formats that ever existed," Clark said. "It's a national treasure -- and so is Larry."\n-- Contact staff writer Nate Gowdy at ngowdy@indiana.edu.