Title of the talk: SELP: A framework for implementing the perception–action loop in an AI agent
Speaker: Bonny Banerjee, Associate Professor, Institute for Intelligent Systems and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Memphis
Date: 16 April 2026 (Thursday)
Time: 04–05 PM (IST)
Venue: Room No. 104, Department of Computer Science and Automation, IISc
Register here: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/SKppXbxXGk
Talk abstract:
In this talk, Dr Bonny Banerjee will present a general-purpose predictive agent that interacts with its environment by relentlessly executing four functions cyclically: Surprise (compute prediction error), Explain (infer causes of surprise), Learn (update internal model using the surprise and inferred causes), and Predict the next observation, called the SELP cycle. To Explain, the agent can act, which includes interaction and communication with its own body (sensed via proprioception) and with its environment and other agents (sensed via perception). The SELP cycle is modular and allows experimentation with different generative models (including large language models) and different fusion methods.
For the last 14 years in Dr Banerjee’s lab, AI agents based on the SELP cycle have been evaluated on multiple applications in comparison to the state-of-the-art, such as, handwriting generation and recognition, interaction generation, intent recognition, speech motor skill acquisition, speech emotion recognition, and learning when and with whom to communicate. This talk will include an overview of these applications.
Speaker biography:
Dr Bonny Banerjee received his MS in Electrical Engineering and PhD in Computer Science, both from the Ohio State University, Columbus, USA. Just after graduating with PhD, he spent 3.5 years (2007–2011, through the Great Recession) leading the research at a startup, which resulted in 7 patents, substantial investor funding, and launch of a commercial product for the end-user, which received wide media coverage. The intellectual property was acquired by the leading company in the field. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Memphis, with joint appointment in the Institute for Intelligent Systems.
Dr Banerjee has published over 75 peer-reviewed articles in reputed journals and conference proceedings in the areas of artificial intelligence, data science, and cognitive science. He received the Best Paper Award at the NeurIPS 2023 workshop. He has served as the Principal Investigator of projects funded by the US National Science Foundation, Department of Homeland Security, Army, St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, City of Memphis, and startup investors. He serves on the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics and Neural Networks (Elsevier) journals. For more information, please visit: https://sites.google.com/site/bonnybanerjee1/.
Host faculty: Professor Chiranjib Bhattacharyya, Department of Computer Science and Automation, IISc
I joined the BTech programme in Mathematics and Computing at the Indian Institute of Science in 2022. My faculty advisor, Professor Viraj Kumar, has guided my academic journey, and I had the opportunity to work under his mentorship during the summer of 2024.
I joined BTech at IISc in 2024.
I joined the BTech programme in 2024. My faculty advisor is Professor Viraj Kumar. I am interested in computer science and would like to do research in computer science in the future.
Anmol Gill pursues the MTech (Artificial Intelligence) programme at IISc, in the Robert Bosch Centre for Cyber-Physical Systems (
I recently completed my BTech in August 2024 from the Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai, with a major in Electronics and Communication Engineering. From May 2024, I am a research intern, supported by the Kotak-IISc AI/ML Centre, in the Human-Interactive Robotics (HiRo) Lab at the Robert Bosch Centre for Cyber-Physical Systems, IISc. I am working under the guidance of Professor Ravi Prakash. My essential area of interest lies in robot learning, which lies under the general area of AI and robotics.
