August 2024: Automated problem solving

You’ve got 99 problems, but computer programs aren’t one of them. Maybe they can be the solution, in fact.

We’ll take a look at automated problem solving - not through newfangled machine learning or LLMs (get off my lawn, you kids), but through mathematically rigorous Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs) and SAT solvers. If you can set up the problem in a well-defined way the solver can understand (and that’s the tricky part), the solver does the rest. Let’s try it out!

Location: Innovation Hub

We meet in the Innovation Hub, a gorgeous new facility that’s part of the renovated Dayton Arcade complex.
Enter through the doors that face the Wright Stop Plaza bus hub.

Street parking is free in the evening. I usually park on Ludlow Street.

or

if for any reason coming downtown doesn’t work for you (for instance, you’ve been exposed to COVID, or you’ve converted yourself to purely digital format and now exist as a set of cloud-hosted algorithms), we’ll be online as well!

Join us at 7 PM EDT on the PyFri Discord channel, discord.gg/9SgTh3T, and click on the General voice chat link. You may need to install the Discord desktop app rather than just using the web interface.