Ben Recht
@beenwrekt.bsky.social
The most important lesson for professors is that you can take a nice vacation without going to a conference.
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?
- #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
#ICML2017 was also in Sydney and was an absolute blast
December 6, 2025 at 4:34 PM
The most important lesson for professors is that you can take a nice vacation without going to a conference.
Wrapping up reinforcement learning week on the blog: Why RL is always leaving efficiency on the table, and what you can do about it.
There's got to be a better way!
From Reformist RL to the principle of certainty equivalence.
www.argmin.net
December 5, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Wrapping up reinforcement learning week on the blog: Why RL is always leaving efficiency on the table, and what you can do about it.
All of reinforcement learning in 809 words.
Defining Reinforcement Learning Down
It's a lot simpler than I realized.
www.argmin.net
December 3, 2025 at 3:29 PM
All of reinforcement learning in 809 words.
It's the most wonderful time of the year...
Fear and Loathing at the AI Winter
open.spotify.com
December 2, 2025 at 4:28 PM
It's the most wonderful time of the year...
With more equations than usual, I explain how policy gradient gives you a framework to randomly search for random search heuristics.
Random Search for Random Search
Digging into specific applications of policy gradient
www.argmin.net
December 2, 2025 at 3:30 PM
With more equations than usual, I explain how policy gradient gives you a framework to randomly search for random search heuristics.
In honor of the 39th AI Winter, I’m going to spend the week disentangling the culture and code of reinforcement learning. There may be ranting...
Reformist Reinforcement Learning
What if we just begin and end with policy gradient?
www.argmin.net
December 1, 2025 at 3:48 PM
In honor of the 39th AI Winter, I’m going to spend the week disentangling the culture and code of reinforcement learning. There may be ranting...
The only argument advanced by proponents of blind peer-review boils down to "less powerful people can't criticize powerful people in public," the same argument people make when advocating for anonymity on social media.
In light of the new OpenReview identity-leak scandal, it's a good time to question our assumptions about why blinding in peer review is helpful in the first place.
November 30, 2025 at 3:03 PM
The only argument advanced by proponents of blind peer-review boils down to "less powerful people can't criticize powerful people in public," the same argument people make when advocating for anonymity on social media.
Randomly amusing myself while traveling: many people believe a large fraction of the reviewer pools of the big AI/ML conferences are master's students and undergraduates. Fact or fiction?
I'd at least like transparency about the demographics of the reviewer pools at the megaconferences.
November 29, 2025 at 12:29 PM
Randomly amusing myself while traveling: many people believe a large fraction of the reviewer pools of the big AI/ML conferences are master's students and undergraduates. Fact or fiction?
In light of the new OpenReview identity-leak scandal, it's a good time to question our assumptions about why blinding in peer review is helpful in the first place.
November 29, 2025 at 10:08 AM
In light of the new OpenReview identity-leak scandal, it's a good time to question our assumptions about why blinding in peer review is helpful in the first place.
You couldn't pay me to watch 49ers-Panthers, but apparently Seth Walder advocates for going 2 down 8 in the third quarter. It's a strategy that can't fail. ❌❌❌
Dave Canales failed the down 8 test ❌❌❌
November 25, 2025 at 2:04 PM
You couldn't pay me to watch 49ers-Panthers, but apparently Seth Walder advocates for going 2 down 8 in the third quarter. It's a strategy that can't fail. ❌❌❌
Does Anthropic let its interviewees use Claude Code?
November 20, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Does Anthropic let its interviewees use Claude Code?
Justifying generative modeling and the principle of maximum likelihood in a single blog post.
Digitally Twinning
Justifying generative modeling and the principle of maximum likelihood
www.argmin.net
November 20, 2025 at 3:31 PM
Justifying generative modeling and the principle of maximum likelihood in a single blog post.
The NIMBYs are coming for Waymo... looking forward to the first filed CEQA complaint.
'Nobody asked for this': Waymo cars flock to quiet Palo Alto street
Palo Alto resident Ben Baum rose like normal before sunrise on Saturday morning, coffee in hand, and watched from his window as a driverless Waymo drove by. Then a second. Then a third. In total, Baum...
www.paloaltoonline.com
November 20, 2025 at 3:06 PM
The NIMBYs are coming for Waymo... looking forward to the first filed CEQA complaint.
This article about "AI is taking entry-level jobs" was making the rounds yesterday... but the author uses LinkedIn as primary sourcing. Come on, man.
‘There’s Just No Reason to Deal With Young Employees’
AI is taking entry-level jobs. What happens when Gen-Z-ers can’t start their careers?
nymag.com
November 19, 2025 at 5:51 PM
This article about "AI is taking entry-level jobs" was making the rounds yesterday... but the author uses LinkedIn as primary sourcing. Come on, man.
A reduction of policymaking to prediction. I’ll write about why this is problematic tomorrow.
Actions from predictions
A general framework for outcome maximization. Is this reinforcement learning?
www.argmin.net
November 18, 2025 at 3:29 PM
A reduction of policymaking to prediction. I’ll write about why this is problematic tomorrow.
Begun, the Butlerian Jihad has.
November 18, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Begun, the Butlerian Jihad has.
13 penalties, 12 points! great football.
More penalties than points in this Chiefs-Broncos game...
November 16, 2025 at 11:11 PM
13 penalties, 12 points! great football.
More penalties than points in this Chiefs-Broncos game...
November 16, 2025 at 10:22 PM
More penalties than points in this Chiefs-Broncos game...
Over on the Gelman blog, there's a post about this histogram of z-scores in published papers. I'm always baffled by the discourse around it. Why is this plot a symptom of a problem? Under what model would we expect this to be a bell curve?
November 15, 2025 at 3:31 PM
Over on the Gelman blog, there's a post about this histogram of z-scores in published papers. I'm always baffled by the discourse around it. Why is this plot a symptom of a problem? Under what model would we expect this to be a bell curve?
A brief introduction to adaptive experimentation without the words "exploration-exploitation tradeoff," "multi-armed bandit," or "reinforcement learning."
How to pick a sample size.
A brief introduction to adaptive experimentation without saying "exploration-exploitation tradeoff."
www.argmin.net
November 13, 2025 at 3:53 PM
A brief introduction to adaptive experimentation without the words "exploration-exploitation tradeoff," "multi-armed bandit," or "reinforcement learning."
Following up on Monday’s discussion, I articulate a few concrete positions on archives, surveys, and position papers.
The DOI Directorate
Articulating a few concrete positions on archives, surveys, and position papers
www.argmin.net
November 12, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Following up on Monday’s discussion, I articulate a few concrete positions on archives, surveys, and position papers.
Based on a fun conversation on here, I wrote about the arXiv position paper controversy and the weird, unwritten, organic evolution of academic practice.
A position on positions
The complex evolution of academic process doesn't always lead us to better practice.
www.argmin.net
November 10, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Based on a fun conversation on here, I wrote about the arXiv position paper controversy and the weird, unwritten, organic evolution of academic practice.
LOL. Sorry, @drewmagary.bsky.social.
Kevin O’Connell passed the down 8 test ✅✅✅
November 9, 2025 at 9:36 PM
LOL. Sorry, @drewmagary.bsky.social.
The Texans went for 2 down 13 in the fourth quarter and won. What do the analytics say about that one?
November 9, 2025 at 9:34 PM
The Texans went for 2 down 13 in the fourth quarter and won. What do the analytics say about that one?
I'm still so confused by this whole dustup.
Why should peer-reviewed papers be posted to pre-print servers?
When did everyone become so committed to churning out position papers?
What happened to the public_html/ directory?
Why should peer-reviewed papers be posted to pre-print servers?
When did everyone become so committed to churning out position papers?
What happened to the public_html/ directory?
We are not "banning" reviews; we are just requiring peer review first. Good review articles are important for the field!
You can’t really blame arXiv for the decision to stop publishing computer science stuff (given the flood of slop) but this is also a textbook example of a global public good being gratuitously degraded www.nature.com/articles/d41...
November 8, 2025 at 7:49 PM
I'm still so confused by this whole dustup.
Why should peer-reviewed papers be posted to pre-print servers?
When did everyone become so committed to churning out position papers?
What happened to the public_html/ directory?
Why should peer-reviewed papers be posted to pre-print servers?
When did everyone become so committed to churning out position papers?
What happened to the public_html/ directory?