I'm going to start to discriminate against people who win big flashy awards. The coin flip went in their favour that time, now I'm going to balance things out in the other direction. /s.... Or am I? 🤔

Congratulations to my colleague Subhash Khot (down the hall), Irit Dinur (across the river and through the woods), Dor Minzer (up the coast), and Guy Kindler and Muli Safra (across the seas), who just got the 2026 Held Prize for their groundbreaking work on 2-2 games!

Congratulations to my NYU colleagues Oded Regev and Ted Rappaport for being named ACM Fellows --- and also to Ken-ichi Kawarabayashi, Jian Ma (@jianma.bsky.social), Noam Nisan, Ariel Procaccia, and Adam Wierman!! www.acm.org/media-center...

Congrats to Valentio Iverson, Alice Moayyedi and Beihao Zhou, recipients of the Computing Research Association’s 2026 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Awards! They are among an outstanding group of research-focused undergrads from universities across N. America. cs.uwaterloo.ca/news/cherito...

I feel terrible when I don't get selected for an academic award. I become so unhappy and, frankly, spiteful sometimes. I wish there was a sign that someone else felt the same way I do.

The final invited talk at #AAAI2026 is by Derek Haoyang Li (Squirrel Ai Learning), on "Small Data: A New Paradigm for the Next Generation of AI." It will be on Sunday, January 25 at 2 PM. CC @aaai.org @hadihoss.bsky.social

The Patrick Henry Winston Outstanding Educator Award went to Alan Mackworth (@alanmackworth.bsky.social UBC) and David Poole (@davpoole.bsky.social UBC). At #AAAI2026, they'll be giving a talk "The Essence of Intelligence is Appropriate Action..." Sunday Jan 25 8:30AM @aaai.org @hadihoss.bsky.social

There will be a celebration of Edward Feigenbaum's 90th birthday at #AAAI2026, on Saturday, January 24 at ~5:30 PM. It will include a lecture “1956 to 2026: Highlights (and Advice) from 70 Years of Navigating the AI Spectrum.” CC @aaai.org @hadihoss.bsky.social

Ashok Goel (Georgia Tech) will be giving an invited talk at #AAAI2026 on Saturday, January 24 at 4:30 PM. The title will be "AI for Reskilling, Upskilling, and Workforce Development." Check it out! CC @aaai.org @hadihoss.bsky.social

Much love for our friends in the UK -- here we are at the Canada Gate next to Buckingham Palace, and passing by London's High Commission of Canada. The strength of our countries' friendship remains strong.

On Saturday, January 24 at 2 PM at #AAAI2026, Ece Kamar (Microsoft Research) will be giving an invited talk titled "Navigating the AI Horizon: Promises, Perils, and the Power of Collaboration." CC @aaai.org @hadihoss.bsky.social

Isabelle Guyon (Google DeepMind) is giving an invited talk at #AAAI2026 on Saturday, January 24 at 8:30 AM, titled "AI in science and technology: the future in our hands." CC @aaai.org @hadihoss.bsky.social

Get feedback on your #ICML2026 submission from Google's Gemini-based paper assistant tool, an advanced LLM tool specialized to assist with ICML submissions. Live now! More details in the following blog post: blog.icml.cc/2026/01/14/i...

The last invited talk next Friday at #AAAI2026 will be Katerina Fragkiadaki (CMU) titled "Learning World Simulators from Data." It'll be Friday, January 23 at 5:35 PM! CC @aaai.org @hadihoss.bsky.social

Another invited talk at #AAAI2026 will be Yolanda Gil (USC), titled "From Workflows to Water Coolers: AI That Can Navigate Human Nature." Check it out Friday, January 23 at 2 PM! CC @aaai.org @hadihoss.bsky.social

Announcing the #ICML2026 policy for self-ranking in reviews! 1. Authors rank their submissions 2. Reviews are submitted 3. The "Isotonic Mechanism" is run on rankings and review scores 4. Large discrepancies are flagged to ACs and SAC CC @wjsu.bsky.social Post: blog.icml.cc/2026/01/12/i...

Across the pond this week -- visiting NYU (London!) for a joint workshop with researchers from Oxford. Will also be giving a talk at ICL on Thursday. Drop by if you're around!

The third invited talk at #AAAI2026 will be by Daniel Whiteson (@danielwhiteson.bsky.social, UC Irvine)! His talk is titled "Fundamental Physics and Science Communication." Check it out at 8:30 AM on Friday, January 23 @aaai.org @hadihoss.bsky.social

New blog post (on a shiny new ICML blog!): What's New in #ICML2026 Peer Review Some highlights: - Policies to combat thinly sliced contributions - Cascading desk rejections for peer-review abuse - Reviewer reciprocity - New ways to support authors and reviewers Post: blog.icml.cc/2026/01/08/w...

The second invited talk at #AAAI2026 will be by Bowen Zhou (Shanghai AI Lab, Tsinghua University)! His talk is titled "Specialized Generalist: Towards High-Efficiency AGI." Check it out at 5:35PM on Thursday, January 22 @aaai.org @hadihoss.bsky.social

I wrote up a little blog post proposing a slightly different way to write asymptotic notation. www.solipsistslog.com/a-simple-and... In short, I think asymptotic notation should usually be written with an INequality. E.g., f(n) <= O(n^2), f(n) < o(log n), f(n) > 2^{-o(n)}, f(n) >= n^{-O(1)}, etc.

We introduce epiplexity, a new measure of information that provides a foundation for how to select, generate, or transform data for learning systems. We have been working on this for almost 2 years, and I cannot contain my excitement! arxiv.org/abs/2601.03220 1/7

It's < 2 weeks till the start of @aaai.org 2026! I'll be highlighting some parts of the program you can't miss. The first invited talk will be by Peter Stone (UT Austin) on "From How to learn to What to learn in Multiagent Systems and Robotics." #AAAI2026

Following our previous #ICML2026 call for tutorial topics, we now welcome tutorial proposals! 📆Deadline: February 6, but proposals will be reviewed as they arrive Courtesy the tutorial chairs Claire Vernade (@claireve.bsky.social) and Adam White

If you are a senior researcher (i.e., associate prof level or later), and you're interested in moving to the University of Waterloo (best CS program in Canada) for the Canada Impact+ Research Chair (biggest chair position in Canada, $$$$$), email me. Discretion guaranteed.

With a new year comes a new Editor-in-Chief! Please give a warm welcome to Laurent Charlin (HEC Montréal and Mila)! He rounds out the team with Gautam Kamath, Naila Murray, and Nihar Shah to help lead TMLR through 2026.

The end of 2025 marks the end of Hugo Larochelle's term as (Founding co-) Editor-in-chief of TMLR. It is an understatement to say that he was indispensable to making TMLR what it is today. Huge thanks to Hugo for everything he's done!

Some may remember this ACM guidance on inclusive terminology. E.g., as advocated by an anon ICLR reviewer, it recommends against the technical term Byzantine. It was recently updated, and suggests avoiding "binary classification" and "stable marriage" (incorrectly defined)

The list of accepted papers at the Algorithmic Learning Theory Conference, a.k.a. #ALT2026, is out! h/t @thejonullman.bsky.social (PC chair). algorithmiclearningtheory.org/alt2026/acce... "ALT: topics so hot, it has to be held in Canada in February"

If people are so hungry for an ML researcher with a Google affiliation making progress on a long standing open problem in math, check out Justin Gilmer's result on the union-closed sets conjecture from 2022 www.quantamagazine.org/long-out-of-...

This is not how mathematics works. For centuries, claiming a result obligates you to defend it. The bigger the claimed result, the larger the obligation. This is particularly true in the era of AI models, where claiming a result is essentially free, but verifying is expensive

If you have a permanent job due to publishing in ML, you owe OpenReview a lot. Please consider donating -- feel free to share donations below! If you work in tech (e.g., MS, Google, etc.), your employer may match donations. We donated through my wife at Microsoft. openreview.net/donate

I'd be a proud dad too (Spotted on a blackboard at UWaterloo)

Supporting public and open infrastructure is fantastic. Well done @icmlconf.bsky.social for supporting OpenReview

One of my core beliefs is that community is SO SO SO important. I might go as far to say that it's the only thing that matters, everything else positive is downstream. That's why I'm proud that, in times of crisis, so many of our community members & institutions have stepped up

ICML reaffirms its support to the community and standards of conduct: - We do not tolerate harassment or other improper conduct; - Academic integrity is paramount; - We redouble our support to peer review, with more incentives for reviewers & financial support for OpenReview icml.cc/public/blog#...

📢 Announcing the dates for #ICML2026 in Seoul! 🇰🇷 July 6th - 11th, 2026 (Monday through Saturday) 📆 Mark your calendar! ✈️ Book your flights! 😅 ...Start stressing about the deadline!

📢 #FOCS2026 will be held in NewYork City, USA! Nov 8–11, 2026 at NYU (colocated with TCC) General Chair: Marshall Ball PC Chair: Sanjeev Khanna (Co-Chair: Sepehr Assadi)

📢 Call for workshop proposals for #ICML2026 in Seoul! 🇰🇷 📆Deadline: February 13, 2026 New this year: - At most 8 organizers per workshop - Organizers must declare if they're an organizer on another workshop proposal - Stricter enforcement of the proposal page limit Details: icml.cc/Conferences/...

Seven CEOs and one scientist (half cut out of the picture)

ICML 2026 is piloting a new policy on LLMs for reviewing. Both authors and reviewers choose whether limited or no LLM use is allowed in reviews, and are matched accordingly. But: authors who say no LLMs must also review with no LLMs. Chairs made a super thoughtful blog post!

Announcing the ICML 2026 policy for LLMs in reviewing! Reviewers and authors both pick either conservative or permissive LLM use, and will be matched accordingly. Importantly: authors on papers who choose conservative must obey the conservative policy as reviewers.

Ending a fantastic week at #NeurIPS2025. Saw a lot of friends (old and new), ate a lot of tacos, gave away a lot of stickers. See you at the next one!

This article frames the problem as [AI?] slop. Which is a problem, but not the main one here. This is an issue with authorship norms and practices. A single individual putting their name on hundreds of (workshop) papers they admitted they had little part in.

One thing I really love about EurIPS is how so many different people and groups pitched in to make it happen. A true community effort. This echoes the philosophy of the Learning Theory Alliance, and I'm glad the crew (inc @neu-rips.bsky.social @amartyasanyal.bsky.social) did such a great job!

Hundreds of people attended the Learning Theory Alliance (LeT-All) social at #NeurIPS2025. Featuring a fireside chat and Q&A with Jon Kleinberg, followed by mentoring with over a dozen mentors. See you at the next event!

The Learning Theory Alliance (LeT-All) also had a social at #EurIPS this year! Featuring a panel discussion as well as mentoring tables afterwards. Building community on multiple continents at the same time!

I loved this fireside chat with Jon Kleinberg. Every topic always came back to the same thing: the people and community you work with. These are so so so important and it perfectly encapsulates the ethos of the Learning Theory Alliance.

In 2026, all three of the major ML conferences will be in incredible locations: - #ICLR2026 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - #ICML2026 in Seoul, South Korea - #NeurIPS2026 in Sydney, Australia Which one do you want to go to the most?

#NeurIPS2026 will be held in Sydney, Australia! #ICML2017 was also in Sydney and was an absolute blast