Kempner Institute at Harvard University
@kempnerinstitute.bsky.social
📤 578
📥 65
📝 239
The Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence at Harvard University.
Congratulations to
#KempnerInstitute
community members
@msalbergo.bsky.social
and
@mweber.bsky.social
— recipients of
@schmidtsciences.bsky.social
AI2050 Fellowships! 🎉 Discover their innovative research shaping the future of AI 👉
bit.ly/47Do4R3
#AI
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Schmidt Sciences Awards Early Career Fellowships to Michael Albergo, Melanie Weber - Kempner Institute
Two Kempner Institute community members have received AI2050 Fellowships from Schmidt Sciences, a nonprofit organization aimed at accelerating scientific knowledge and breakthroughs. The AI2050 Progra...
https://bit.ly/47Do4R3
about 10 hours ago
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🧠💻Kempner researchers are using the new
#DGXSpark
to map how genes shape the brain — bringing the power of
#AI
straight to the bench and accelerating the pace of discovery.🚀
bit.ly/4ogQabW
@blsabatini.bsky.social
@harvardmed.bsky.social
@bethstevenslab.bsky.social
@bostonchildrens.bsky.social
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Decoding Epilepsy with the Power of AI - Kempner Institute
The Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence has launched an ambitious new project that brings together the frontiers of biology and computing to uncover how genetic […]
https://bit.ly/4ogQabW
3 days ago
0
2
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🧠Discover what’s new at the
#KempnerInstitute
! Our October Research Roundup brings together the latest preprints and publications from our researchers. 🔗Explore more:
bit.ly/3LdVbUh
#Neuroscience
#AI
#Research
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Research Roundup - Kempner Institute
The Kempner Research Roundup compiles publications, preprints and announcements authored by members of the Kempner Institute community. We publish the Roundup approximately three times each academic y...
https://bit.ly/3LdVbUh
4 days ago
0
0
0
💡One training run. Many LLMs. Discover Boomerang Distillation — a new way to “recombine” large + small models into a whole family of LLMs. More in the Deeper Learning blog 👇
bit.ly/3WtMWWw
Post by Sara Kangaslahti, Jonathan Geuter, and Nihal Nayak
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Boomerang Distillation Enables Zero-Shot Model Size Interpolation - Kempner Institute
Real-world deployments of LLMs require models of different sizes to meet performance, latency, and cost targets. Yet pretraining every size is prohibitively expensive, leaving large gaps in size-perfo...
http://bit.ly/3WtMWWw
9 days ago
0
1
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How do LLMs think about thinking? 🤔 In the latest Kempner Seminar Series talk,
@profsanjeevarora.bsky.social
(Princeton University and Princeton PLI) explores how “metacognition” shapes problem-solving in large language models. Watch here:
youtu.be/Tl48e0Euois
#KempnerInstitute
#AI
#LLM
#CS
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LLM Skills and Metacognition: Scaffolding for New Forms of Learning? with Sanjeev Arora
YouTube video by Kempner Institute at Harvard University
https://youtu.be/Tl48e0Euois
11 days ago
0
3
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In the latest Kempner Seminar Series talk, Hannah Choi of Georgia Institute of Technology discusses recent work that investigates cortical mechanisms underlying predictive coding. Watch the talk:
youtu.be/9gf0lCu8tVc
#KempnerInstitute
#AI
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Predictive Coding with Cortical Cell Types and Connectivity with Hannah Choi
YouTube video by Kempner Institute at Harvard University
https://youtu.be/9gf0lCu8tVc
18 days ago
0
4
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NEW in
#DeeperLearning
blog: Training quantized LLMs is tough -- the staircase loss landscape kills gradients everywhere. Meet LOTION🧴: a framework that replaces the quantized loss w/ a smoother objective that preserves the same global minima. 👉
bit.ly/47pg07v
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LOTION: Smoothing the Optimization Landscape for Quantized Training - Kempner Institute
Quantization and low-precision inference are necessary tools to continue leveraging scale for Large Language Model Performance. However, training models for quantized performance is challenging becaus...
https://bit.ly/47pg07v
23 days ago
1
1
0
In the latest Kempner Seminar Series talk, Leyla Isik of
@jhuartssciences.bsky.social
discusses researching social interaction perception using computational vision tools. Watch the talk:
youtu.be/YtVV55vjNDg
#KempnerInstitute
#CogSci
#Vision
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Seeing Social Interactions with Leyla Isik
YouTube video by Kempner Institute at Harvard University
https://youtu.be/YtVV55vjNDg
24 days ago
0
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NEW in the
#DeeperLearning
blog! 🤖 ToolUniverse turns LLMs into “AI scientists,” tapping 600+ tools for experiments, modeling & discovery. 🔍 Read the post by Shanghua Gao, Richard Zhu, &
@marinkazitnik.bsky.social
:
bit.ly/46KHIvp
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From Models to Scientists: Building AI Agents for Scientific Discovery - Kempner Institute
ToolUniverse is a framework for developing AI agents for science, often referred to as “AI scientists.” It provides an environment where LLMs interact with more than six hundred scientific tools, […]
http://bit.ly/46KHIvp
28 days ago
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What’s next in intelligence research? Meet our twenty fall 2025 KURE students. These undergraduates are pursuing original projects from tracing alignment faking in LLMs to modeling elephantfish communication. See the future of the field:
bit.ly/3KKUstb
#AI
#Neuroscience
#KempnerInstitute
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Kempner Institute Welcomes Fall 2025 Undergraduate Student Researchers - Kempner Institute
Cambridge, MA – The Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence at Harvard is pleased to announce the fall 2025 recipients of the Kempner Undergraduate Research Experience [...
http://bit.ly/3KKUstb
30 days ago
0
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NEW on our
#DeeperLearning
blog People balance being kind vs. being honest — and
#LLMs
should too. New research shows training choices often favor informativeness over kindness, but prompting can induce sycophancy. Read more:
bit.ly/3Wqrtxl
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Using Cognitive Models to Reveal Value Trade-offs in Language Models - Kempner Institute
People’s actions and words are the result of a balance of different goals. The authors use a leading cognitive model of this value trade-off in polite speech to systematically examine […]
http://bit.ly/3Wqrtxl
about 1 month ago
1
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In the latest Kempner Seminar Series talk, Tatsunori Hashimoto of
@stanfordnlp.bsky.social
discusses synthetic data and algorithmic approaches to data efficiency. Watch the talk:
youtu.be/pookfyF5Vu4
#KempnerInstitute
#AI
#scaling
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Back to the Future – Data Efficient Language Modeling with Tatsunori Hashimoto
YouTube video by Kempner Institute at Harvard University
https://youtu.be/pookfyF5Vu4
about 1 month ago
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In the latest Kempner Seminar Series talk, Kevin Ellis of Cornell University discusses how an AI system could acquire, transfer, and communicate its knowledge of how things work. Watch the talk:
youtu.be/b0_BXShGgno
#KempnerInstitute
#AI
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Mental Programs in Humans and Machines with Kevin Ellis
YouTube video by Kempner Institute at Harvard University
https://youtu.be/b0_BXShGgno
about 1 month ago
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⌛️ Deadline approaching! Applications for the
#KempnerInstitute
Research Fellowships close Oct. 1. We welcome postdocs exploring the foundations of
#intelligence
or applications of
#AI
to apply. 👉 Learn more & apply:
bit.ly/3UvpSpe
#LLMs
#NeuroAI
#ML
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Kempner Research Fellowship - Kempner Institute
The Kempner brings leading, early-stage postdoctoral scientists to Harvard to work on projects that advance the fundamental understanding of intelligence.
http://bit.ly/3UvpSpe
about 1 month ago
0
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NEW:
#KempnerInstitute's
Naomi Saphra and her work on
#interpretability
featured in
@quantamagazine.bsky.social
! Read the article by
@benbenbrubaker.bsky.social
here:
t.co/40Tw1mmESe
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https://www.quantamagazine.org/to-understand-ai-watch-how-it-evolves-20250924/
https://t.co/40Tw1mmESe
about 1 month ago
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News from the
#KempnerInstitute
! We’re thrilled to welcome Yonatan Belinkov (expert in
#NLP
) and Daphna Weinshall (expert in human & machine vision) as visiting scholars for the 2025–26 academic year. 📖 Read more:
bit.ly/47QkDID
#AI
#MachineVision
@boknilev.bsky.social
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Kempner Institute Welcomes Yonatan Belinkov and Daphna Weinshall as Visiting Scholars for the 2025-2026 Academic Year - Kempner Institute
The Kempner Institute is pleased to welcome Yonatan Belinkov and Daphna Weinshall as visiting scholars for the 2025-26 academic year. Both are preeminent researchers in the field of intelligence, help...
http://bit.ly/47QkDID
about 2 months ago
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Happy
#OpenScienceWeek
! Explore
#KempnerInstitute
#OpenScience
resources: 📗HPC Handbook:
bit.ly/4gtUzFj
💻GitHub:
github.com/KempnerInsti...
💻HuggingFace:
huggingface.co/KempnerInsti...
📽️Talks on YouTube:
www.youtube.com/@KempnerInst...
about 2 months ago
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reposted by
Kempner Institute at Harvard University
Kanaka Rajan
about 2 months ago
(1/8) New paper from our team! Yu Duan & Hamza Chaudhry introduce POCO, a tool for predicting brain activity at the cellular & network level during spontaneous behavior. Find out how we built POCO & how it changes neurobehavioral research 👇
arxiv.org/abs/2506.14957
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reposted by
Kempner Institute at Harvard University
Yonatan Belinkov ✈️ COLM2025
about 2 months ago
@robinjia.bsky.social
speaking at
@kempnerinstitute.bsky.social
on Auditing, Dissecting, and Evaluating LLMs
0
1
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In the first Kempner Seminar Series talk of the semester
@moiradillon.bsky.social
of New York University discusses the cognitive origins of spatial and social intelligence. Watch the talk:
youtu.be/YcgOj1wZVkg
#psychology
#cogsci
#KempnerInstitute
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Developing Intelligence: Insights from Spatial and Social Cognition with Moira Dillon
YouTube video by Kempner Institute at Harvard University
https://youtu.be/YcgOj1wZVkg
about 2 months ago
0
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How can scientists apply efficient
#AI
tools to cognitive science? And what does it mean for how robots learn in new environments?
#KempnerInstitute
fellow Wilka Carvalho (
@cogscikid.bsky.social
l) + collaborators outline a new framework in 3 papers. Read more:
bit.ly/47Fk9F9
#NeuroAI
about 2 months ago
1
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See the speakers for 2025-26
#KempnerInstitute
Seminar Series!
bit.ly/46xphKq
@moiradillon.bsky.social
@lisik.bsky.social
@profsanjeevarora.bsky.social
@kyunghyuncho.bsky.social
@scychan.bsky.social
@stellaathena.bsky.social
@judithfan.bsky.social
@engeltatiana.bsky.social
@zdeborova.bsky.social
about 2 months ago
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Here's to a new academic year! The
#KempnerInstitute
kicked off the semester at its opening Welcome Reception last Friday, bringing together almost 100 community members. See pictures from the event:
bit.ly/4nrN44i
#AI
#NeuroAI
#ML
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Kicking Off a New Academic Year at the Kempner - Kempner Institute
Cambridge, MA– On Friday September 5th, as the first week of classes wrapped up at Harvard, the Kempner Institute community gathered for its opening reception, celebrating the growing and vibrant […]
http://bit.ly/4nrN44i
about 2 months ago
0
1
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Here's the August Research Roundup from the
#KempnerInstitute
, featuring recent papers and preprints. 🧠🤖
kempnerinstitute.harvard.edu/kempner-comm...
#AI
#NeuroAI
#neuroscience
#medtech
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Research Roundup - Kempner Institute
The Kempner Research Roundup compiles publications, preprints and announcements authored by members of the Kempner Institute community. We publish the Roundup approximately three times each academic y...
https://kempnerinstitute.harvard.edu/kempner-community/research-roundup/
2 months ago
0
2
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#KempnerInstitute
researchers find
#ChatGPT’s
guardrails are biased against certain users based on contextual information and inferences about the user. Research by Victoria Li,
@yidachen.bsky.social
&
@nsaphra.bsky.social
. Check out
@theregister.com
's article:
bit.ly/47eaANa
#AI
#LLMs
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ChatGPT hates LA Chargers fans
: Harvard researchers find model guardrails tailor query responses to user's inferred politics and other affiliations
http://bit.ly/47eaANa
2 months ago
0
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#KempnerInstitute
researchers have a new paper out in PLOS CB that uses a feedforward network to mimic properties of human contour integration. Check out the paper by Fenil R. Doshi, George Alvarez and
@taliakonkle.bsky.social
here:
journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
#AI
#NeuroAI
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A feedforward mechanism for human-like contour integration
Author summary A central challenge in vision science is understanding how the visual system links fragmented local features into coherent object representations. One foundational process supporting th...
https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1013391
2 months ago
0
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reposted by
Kempner Institute at Harvard University
Kate Davidson
2 months ago
Linguists, encourage potential postdocs who are AI/computationally focused to apply to these fellowships at the Kempner Institute!
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Congratulations to
#KempnerInstitute
associate faculty member
@cpehlevan.bsky.social
for joining the new
@simonsfoundation.org
Simons Collaboration on the Physics of Learning and Neural Computation!
www.simonsfoundation.org/2025/08/18/s...
#AI
#neuroscience
#NeuroAI
#physics
#ANNs
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Simons Foundation Launches Collaboration on the Physics of Learning and Neural Computation
Simons Foundation Launches Collaboration on the Physics of Learning and Neural Computation on Simons Foundation
https://www.simonsfoundation.org/2025/08/18/simons-foundation-launches-collaboration-on-the-physics-of-learning-and-neural-computation/
3 months ago
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Scaling up models has led to major advances in
#AI
&
#machinelearning
. Check out the latest installment in the
#KempnerBytes
series to learn more about
#scalinglaws
and other aspects of research on scale in artificial neural networks.
bit.ly/3UzgPUg
#KempnerInstitute
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The Power of Scale in Machine Learning - Kempner Institute
AI is currently advancing at an unprecedented clip, but many of the mathematical methods that are enabling these advances were developed decades ago. The big breakthroughs in machine learning (ML) […]
http://bit.ly/3UzgPUg
3 months ago
0
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reposted by
Kempner Institute at Harvard University
Sam Gershman
3 months ago
If you work on artificial or natural intelligence and are finishing your PhD, consider applying for a Kempner research fellowship at Harvard:
kempnerinstitute.harvard.edu/kempner-inst...
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Kempner Research Fellowship - Kempner Institute
The Kempner brings leading, early-stage postdoctoral scientists to Harvard to work on projects that advance the fundamental understanding of intelligence.
https://kempnerinstitute.harvard.edu/kempner-institute-research-fellowship/
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Applications are now open for our
#KempnerInstitute
Research Fellowships! Postdocs studying the foundations of
#intelligence
or applications of
#AI
are encouraged to apply. Learn more and apply by Oct. 1:
bit.ly/3UvpSpe
#LLMs
#NeuroAI
#ML
@shamkakade.bsky.social
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Kempner Research Fellowship - Kempner Institute
The Kempner brings leading, early-stage postdoctoral scientists to Harvard to work on projects that advance the fundamental understanding of intelligence.
http://bit.ly/3UvpSpe
3 months ago
0
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We are thrilled to share the appointment of
@qianqianwang.bsky.social
as an
#KempnerInstitute
Investigator! She will bring her expertise in computer vision to
@harvard.edu
. Read the announcement:
bit.ly/4mIghHy
#AI
#ComputerVision
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Computer Scientist Qianqian Wang, an Expert in Computer Vision, to Join Harvard’s Kempner Institute and SEAS - Kempner Institute
CAMBRIDGE, MA —The Kempner Institute announced today the appointment of Qianqian Wang, who will join Harvard as Kempner Institute Investigator and Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the John A...
http://bit.ly/4mIghHy
3 months ago
0
1
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#CCN2025
begins tomorrow! Check out the presentations from the
#KempnerInstitute
.
#NeuroAI
#neuroscience
3 months ago
0
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The Kempner Institute's Kianté Brantley (
@xkianteb.bsky.social
) is at the forefront of efforts to improve LLM training. He and his team are using "resets" to make
#RL
more efficient. Read more about his work in this new profile:
bit.ly/47jUuS4
#AI
#LLMs
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How to Optimize the Training of Large Language Models? Use Resets, Says Kempner Institute Investigator Kianté Brantley - Kempner Institute
Large language models (LLMs) are a cornerstone of the current revolution in AI, providing users with the unprecedented ability to generate useful text for a variety of practical applications. In […]
http://bit.ly/47jUuS4
3 months ago
0
1
1
New in the
#DeeperLearningBlog
:
@shunnnli.bsky.social
describes the discovery of a type of synapse that switches between more excitatory and more inhibitory in an experience-dependent manner.
bit.ly/40OYYw4
#neuroscience
#dopamine
#RL
@blsabatini.bsky.social
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ANN-like Synapses in the Brain Mediate Online Reinforcement Learning - Kempner Institute
Synaptic plasticity rules in the brain are normally thought of as changing synaptic weights but not signs, unlike artificial neural networks. We show that a type of synapse in the […]
http://bit.ly/40OYYw4
3 months ago
0
4
1
Here's the latest Research Roundup from the
#KempnerInstitute
, featuring recent papers and preprints.
kempnerinstitute.harvard.edu/kempner-comm...
#AI
#NeuroAI
#neuroscience
#medtech
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Research Roundup - Kempner Institute
The Kempner Research Roundup compiles publications, preprints and announcements authored by members of the Kempner Institute community. We publish the Roundup approximately three times each academic y...
https://kempnerinstitute.harvard.edu/kempner-community/research-roundup/
3 months ago
0
2
1
reposted by
Kempner Institute at Harvard University
Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
3 months ago
Binxu Wang is a research fellow at
@kempnerinstitute.bsky.social
, where she focuses on visual neuroscience and understanding generative AI. She discusses her research on primate brains, learning to survive in science as an introvert, and more.
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At the Frontier of Intelligence
Binxu Wang is a research fellow at Harvard’s Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence (AI), where she focuses on visual neuroscience and understanding generative AI. She…
https://gsas.harvard.edu/news/frontier-intelligence
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New in the
#DeeperLearningBlog
: Zhaolin Gao and collaborators including the
#KempnerInstitute's
Kianté Brantley presents a powerful new
#RL
algorithm tailored for reasoning tasks with
#LLMs
that updates using only one generation per prompt.
bit.ly/44US1Mt
@xkianteb.bsky.social
#AI
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Accelerating RL for LLM Reasoning with Optimal Advantage Regression - Kempner Institute
Recent LLM advances show the effectiveness of RL with rule-based rewards, but methods like GRPO and PPO are costly due to critics or multiple generations per prompt. We propose a […]
http://bit.ly/44US1Mt
3 months ago
0
1
1
#KempnerInstitute
affiliate faculty member Melanie Weber is among the researchers featured in this Harvard Gazette piece on math and AI.
news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...
@mweber.bsky.social
#AI
#mathematics
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AI leaps from math dunce to whiz — Harvard Gazette
Experts describe how rapid advances are transforming field and classroom and expanding idea of what’s possible — ‘sky’s the limit’
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/07/ai-leaps-from-math-dunce-to-whiz/
3 months ago
0
2
1
#KempnerInstitute
research fellow
@andykeller.bsky.social
and coauthors Yue Song, Max Welling and Nicu Sebe have a new book out that introduces a framework for developing equivariant
#AI
&
#neuroscience
models. Read more:
kempnerinstitute.harvard.edu/news/kempner...
#NeuroAI
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Kempner Research Fellow Andy Keller Wants to Improve How AI Systems Represent a Dynamic World - Kempner Institute
Humans have a powerful ability to recognize patterns in a dynamic, ever-changing world, allowing for problem-solving and other cognitive abilities that are the hallmark of intelligent behavior. Yet de...
https://kempnerinstitute.harvard.edu/news/kempner-research-fellow-andy-keller-wants-to-improve-how-ai-systems-represent-a-dynamic-world/
3 months ago
0
7
2
New in the
#DeeperLearningBlog
: the
#KempnerInstitute's
Mary Letey presents work recently published in PNAS that offers generalizable insights into in-context learning (ICL) in an analytically-solvable model architecture.
bit.ly/4lPK15p
#AI
@pnas.org
(1/2)
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Solvable Model of In-Context Learning Using Linear Attention - Kempner Institute
Attention-based architectures are a powerful force in modern AI. In particular, the emergence of in-context learning enables these models to perform tasks far beyond the original next-token prediction...
https://kempnerinstitute.harvard.edu/research/deeper-learning/solvable-model-of-in-context-learning-using-linear-attention/
3 months ago
1
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We’re thrilled to introduce the 2025 cohort of
#KempnerInstitute
Graduate Fellows! This year’s recipients include grad students enrolled across five
@harvard.edu
Ph.D. programs. Read more:
bit.ly/3TYzZ5H
#AI
#NeuroAI
#ML
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Kempner Institute Announces Recipients of 2025 Graduate Fellowships - Kempner Institute
Cambridge, MA – The Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence today announced the names of 13 students chosen as the incoming 2025 cohort of Kempner Graduate […]
http://bit.ly/3TYzZ5H
4 months ago
1
5
4
New in the
#DeeperLearningBlog
:
#KempnerInstitute
research fellow
@andykeller.bsky.social
introduces the first flow equivariant neural networks, which reflect motion symmetries, greatly enhancing generalization and sequence modeling.
bit.ly/451fQ48
#AI
#NeuroAI
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Flow Equivariant Recurrent Neural Networks - Kempner Institute
Sequence transformations, like visual motion, dominate the world around us, but are poorly handled by current models. We introduce the first flow equivariant models that respect these motion symmetrie...
http://bit.ly/451fQ48
4 months ago
0
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Check out the
#KempnerInstitute's
presentations at
#ICML2025
today!
4 months ago
0
3
0
New in the
#DeeperLearningBlog
:
#KempnerInstitute
researchers
@binxuwang.bsky.social
and John J. Vastola explain their work uncovering the linear Gaussian structure in diffusion models and the potential to use it to enhance performance.
bit.ly/4lCauDv
#AI
#DiffusionModels
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The Hidden Linear Structure in Diffusion Models and its Application in Analytical Teleportation - Kempner Institute
Diffusion models are powerful generative frameworks that iteratively denoise white noise into structured data via learned score functions. Through theory and experiments, we demonstrate that these sco...
http://bit.ly/4lCauDv
4 months ago
0
5
2
Here are today's
#ICML2025
presentations from the
#KempnerInstitute
!
4 months ago
0
1
0
Check out the
#KempnerInstitute
presentations at
#ICML2025
today!
4 months ago
0
1
0
reposted by
Kempner Institute at Harvard University
Greta Tuckute
4 months ago
Very excited to be joining the Kempner Institute this fall as a Research Fellow—and to be part of this amazing cohort and the broader Kempner/Harvard community! Please don’t hesitate to get in touch!
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reposted by
Kempner Institute at Harvard University
David G. Clark
4 months ago
Excited!
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reposted by
Kempner Institute at Harvard University
Gizem Özdil
4 months ago
Big life update: I’m super excited to be joining the Kempner Institute as a Research Fellow! If you’re curious about my research plans or just want to connect, please reach out! 😊
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