We have two new mentees who are offering their time via office hours! Please show Sandeep Silwal and Kevin Tian some love and sign up to meet them! let-all.com/officehours....

At my side-gig as a podcaster, I recently had the joy of interviewing Sam Hopkins!

We've got the next episode of the learning theory podcast, Probably Approximately Correct Learners! This episode is with Samuel B. Hopkins at MIT -- check it out! www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oeA...

Getting mixed signals here

Query-Efficient Locally Private Hypothesis Selection via the Scheffe Graph Gautam Kamath, Alireza F. Pour, Matthew Regehr, David P. Woodruff http://arxiv.org/abs/2509.16180

While I'm here, let me advertise that Reed CS is hiring this year in Systems! It's a wonderful set of people in the deparment, really engaged students, and (unlike many college) you can live in a city. Deadline October 17 Definitely apply if you're looking for a "PUI" position

I'm in Portland, Oregon visiting Reed College (@reed.edu) as part of the external review for their computer science department! This picture looks like a typical New England liberal arts college, but the PNW remains one of the most beautiful parts of the US.

If you work on theory in responsible computing and are looking for a job, fill out this form before September 28! Responsible computing includes private data analysis, fairness, robustness, mathematical approaches bridging computer science, law, ethics, etc. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Link to be included: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... Last year's list if you're curious: drive.google.com/file/d/1Hyvg...

📢Adam Smith, @gautamkamath.com, and I are putting together a list of job market candidates in Foundations of Responsible Computing! Last year's list was a great success so we're keeping it going! If you want to be included, or nominate someone, see link in the replies!

Got some hot research cooking? 🔥 The @satml.org paper deadline is just 9 days away. We are looking forward to your work on security, privacy, and fairness in machine learning. 👉 satml.org/call-for-pap... ⏰ Sep 24

Choose the aisle seat if you're a people pleaser, choose the window seat if you're confrontational, and choose the middle seat if you're a masochist.

Anyone who's done a PhD knows the feeling

Always a pleasant reminder every time I stop by my local public library @kitchlibrary.bsky.social (see bottom right)

I and a few others are lending our time to the community to chat to anyone around the world with an internet connection! Book a slot if you want to chat. I've talked to folks about how to get involved in research, which grad program to choose, and much more!

Wanna chat with an experienced learning theory researcher? We have open office hours online with four awesome folks, Surbhi Goel (@surbhigoel.bsky.social), Gautam Kamath (@gautamkamath.com), Ayush Sekhari, and Lydia Zakynthinou)! Book a slot and ask them anything! let-all.com/officehours....

Congrats and farewell to my Masters student Jimmy Z. Di. He presented his thesis on memorization in diffusion models (arxiv.org/abs/2508.12148) in addition to his other unlearning work (arxiv.org/abs/2406.17216 arxiv.org/abs/2212.10717). He goes on to a PhD at @uwmadison.bsky.social. We'll miss you!

The great thing about parenting a toddler is that the rest of your day is easy after whatever you've been through by 9 am

First lecture today: connecting to the projector with Linux worked immediately, but Windows didn't work due to a driver issue...? 10 years ago this would be unthinkable.

Bo Burnham's "Inside" may be the best piece of pandemic themed media. Did anything else even compete?

Three weeks to go until the SaTML 2026 deadline! ⏰ We look forward to your work on security, privacy, and fairness in AI. 🗓️ Deadline: Sept 24, 2025 We have also updated our Call for Papers with a statement on LLM usage, check it out: 👉 satml.org/call-for-pap... @satml.org

Delighted to announce I have joined the board of the Association for Computational Learning (ACL) as Diversity and Inclusion Officer! With your help, let's strive to make the learning theory conferences and community more inclusive and welcoming to all! ACL website: learningtheory.org

> See laptop is running slow > Check processes, notice that Zoom is taking up 300% CPU > Kill Zoom process > Immediately drop from the Zoom meeting I was in Why am I like this?

Exciting news! We're thrilled to announce the appointment of Professor Hugo Larochelle as Mila's new Scientific Director! A deep learning pioneer and former head of Google's AI lab in Montreal, Hugo's leadership will be pivotal in advancing AI for the benefit of all. mila.quebec/en/news/hugo...

Fresh off the press: the latest issue of the Journal of Privacy and Confidentiality (JPC) ft. our paper on the interplay b/w #privacy and machine unlearning! This is work w/ Sophia (Yiyang) Huang, then-undergrad at UNSW, during an internship at #USyd journalprivacyconfidentiality.org/index.php/jp...

Did you hear about the Magic 8 Ball that kept having issues with its email client? It said "Outlook not so good."

Snippet from the AISTATS call for workshops (first ever!) Can someone explain what large workshop organization teams even *do*? I've only organized workshops with up to ~4 organizers, and never more than like 3 people actually did anything substantial 🤔

📣 Researchers in AI security, privacy & fairness: It's time to share your latest work! The SaTML 2026 submission site is live 👉 hotcrp.satml.org 🗓️ Deadline: Sept 24, 2025 @satml.org

Made a typo when trying to visit my favourite website, now got a free startup idea for any takers

Super thoughtful reflections from Victor on his first year as a faculty. This very intentional structure for his student meetings is really interesting!

I finally finished it! www.victorzhong.com/writing/refl...

Many academics had alternate former careers. Perhaps the coolest is roboticist Professor Missy Cummings at GMU, who flew the F-18 Hornet before doing her PhD. She became a USN fighter pilot shortly after the Combat Exclusion Policy was repealed, allowing women to pilot in 1993.

An obsession with revenge, punishment, and making one's enemies suffer is a weak (but surprisingly common) personality trait.

So disorienting when a friend has their toddler at a work event. Switching between children talk and adult talk is not trivial.

Despite the Air Canada strike, I'm on the way to sunny Santa Barbara for the privacy-preserving machine learning workshop, as part of CRYPTO 2025. Catch me there talking about how privacy fits into a broader landscape of robustness!

The highest value and quality reviews are those which are very annoying and you hate, but then you begrudgingly admit that they are correct and do the things they suggest.

📢 Call for AAAI-26 Doctoral Consortium Submissions (Deadline: September 30 AoE) Doctoral students in the AI community are invited to apply to the Doctoral Consortium at #AAAI26, held on January 20-21 2026 in Singapore! aaai.org/conference/a...

Reminder: a professor is so much more than the lines on their CV. Even restricting yourself to academics, you get almost no insight into how they have touched the lives of their students and uplifted those in the communities they belong to.

New blog post on the Learning Theory Alliance blog, by Diptangshu Sen (@dsensei.bsky.social) and Juba Ziani (@jubaz.bsky.social), on strategic classification. Click through to read more! www.let-all.com/blog/2025/08...

To reduce barriers to attendance, #FOCS2025 will try to facilitate childcare for attendees during the conference. Information, how to register your interest, and how to apply for financial support: focs.computer.org/2025/childca... Deadline (for the latter): ⏰ September 19th (AoE)

📢💥 Call for AAAI-26 Bridge Program Proposals (Deadline Extended to August 29)💥📢 We invite proposals for the Bridge Program of the 40th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-26). The Bridge Program will be held January 20-21, 2026 in Singapore! @realaaai.bsky.social

I updated my blog post on how to ask for a letter of recommendation, with two tips for more established researchers: - Describe some of your selected works and their significance/impact - If you ask someone for a letter repeatedly, highlight the diffs wrt the previous version

Wow, NeurIPS is making reviewer scores disappear after Mandatory Acknowledgment, this is so mysterious! I wonder what the reviewer updated their score to... Oh.

Press X to doubt.

🚨 Got a great idea for an AI + Security competition? @satml.org is now accepting proposals for its Competition Track! Showcase your challenge and engage the community. 👉 satml.org/call-for-com... 🗓️ Deadline: Aug 6

Everyone's talking about AI performance on the IMO. Let me highlight 🇨🇦Canadian 11th grader Warren Bei🇨🇦, one of five participants with a *perfect* 42/42. This is his *fifth* (and final) IMO representing Canada, with three golds and two silvers. (➡️ MIT undergrad in the fall)

New post on the Learning Theory Alliance blog, by Arsen Vasilyan. This covers the recently introduced testable learning paradigm of Rubinfeld and Vasilyan, from their STOC 2023 paper. A great chance to catch up on all the exciting work that's happened in this area! www.let-all.com/blog/2025/07...

Youtube is borderline unusable on Chrome after adblockers have been disabled. Super annoying ads every 3-4 minutes.

For years, people have suggested having alternate NeurIPS locations, outside the US. 2025 is the first time it will be done, with satellite locations in Copenhagen and Mexico City. I wonder if this will be a one-off thing, or whether the trend will continue.

Chengnian Sun and Hongyang Zhang have each received $60k USD through the Google Research Scholar Program. Professor Sun’s project will focus on enhancing compiler optimizations; Professor Zhang’s project aims to improve the speed and efficiency of reasoning in LLMs. cs.uwaterloo.ca/news/chengni...