Theresa Eimer
@theeimer.bsky.social
RL researcher looking for DACs // What is this AutoRL anyway?
she/her
Currently: Leibniz Uni Hannover
Previously: Uni Freiburg (Master's) | Meta AI London (Intern)
Always & Forever: AutoRL.org
she/her
Currently: Leibniz Uni Hannover
Previously: Uni Freiburg (Master's) | Meta AI London (Intern)
Always & Forever: AutoRL.org
Foundation models on the AutoML podcast 2/3: are LLMs killing AutoML? It's probably not that simple. Listen for more details 😉
A spooky AutoML podcast? Easy, let's talk about LLMs doing end-to-end ML out of the box! 👻🪓🪦
Roberta Raileanu and Deepak Nathani discuss their MLGym benchmark, how good code generation for AutoML is currently and what that means for AutoML research.
Roberta Raileanu and Deepak Nathani discuss their MLGym benchmark, how good code generation for AutoML is currently and what that means for AutoML research.
MLGym: A New Framework and Benchmark for Advancing AI Research Agents
AutoML is dead an LLMs have killed it? MLGym is a benchmark and framework testing this theory. Roberta Raileanu and Deepak Nathani discuss how well current LLMs...
automlpodcast.com
October 31, 2025 at 11:32 AM
Foundation models on the AutoML podcast 2/3: are LLMs killing AutoML? It's probably not that simple. Listen for more details 😉
I fell into a hole, but made it out again with new episodes! This is part one of three of an accidental series on foundation models. The next parts will be released in October and November, so stay tuned!
After far too long, a new episode! We're doing a mini-series on AutoML & Foundation Models, kicking off with Richard Song on foundation models for black box optimization.
automlpodcast.com/episode/leve...
automlpodcast.com/episode/leve...
Leverage Foundational Models for Black-Box Optimization
Where and how can we use foundation models in AutoML? Richard Song, researcher at Google DeepMind, has some answers. Starting off from his position paper on...
automlpodcast.com
September 22, 2025 at 11:32 AM
I fell into a hole, but made it out again with new episodes! This is part one of three of an accidental series on foundation models. The next parts will be released in October and November, so stay tuned!
Great opportunity to work with great people. Go apply!
One more time (and now with a working link) 😅
Several PhD positions in two brand-new labs at the Lamarr Intitute / TU Dortmund.
Lots of exciting research on #tabulardata, #autom and #benchmarking.
👉 Apply now, there's less than a week left!
Several PhD positions in two brand-new labs at the Lamarr Intitute / TU Dortmund.
Lots of exciting research on #tabulardata, #autom and #benchmarking.
👉 Apply now, there's less than a week left!
🔔 Reminder: 🎓 Interested in a #PhD on #AutoML, #Optimization & #Benchmarking? 🚀 Positions here 👉 automl4science.de/files/2025_J... ⏳ Only six days left to apply!
August 28, 2025 at 12:06 PM
Great opportunity to work with great people. Go apply!
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
New blog post: AI Allergy.
On my increasing disgust with the AI discourse, even though I still like the technical and philosophical. And how I wish I could be excited about AI again.
togelius.blogspot.com/2025/08/ai-a...
On my increasing disgust with the AI discourse, even though I still like the technical and philosophical. And how I wish I could be excited about AI again.
togelius.blogspot.com/2025/08/ai-a...
AI Allergy
I remember being excited about AI. I remember 20 years ago, being excited about neuroevolutionary methods for learning adaptive behaviors in...
togelius.blogspot.com
August 13, 2025 at 5:00 AM
New blog post: AI Allergy.
On my increasing disgust with the AI discourse, even though I still like the technical and philosophical. And how I wish I could be excited about AI again.
togelius.blogspot.com/2025/08/ai-a...
On my increasing disgust with the AI discourse, even though I still like the technical and philosophical. And how I wish I could be excited about AI again.
togelius.blogspot.com/2025/08/ai-a...
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
The "reproducibility crisis" in science constantly makes headlines. Repro efforts are often limited. What if you could assess reproducibility of an entire field?
That's what @brunolemaitre.bsky.social et al. have done. Fly immunity is highly replicable & offers lessons for #metascience
A 🧵 1/n
That's what @brunolemaitre.bsky.social et al. have done. Fly immunity is highly replicable & offers lessons for #metascience
A 🧵 1/n
July 10, 2025 at 8:23 AM
The "reproducibility crisis" in science constantly makes headlines. Repro efforts are often limited. What if you could assess reproducibility of an entire field?
That's what @brunolemaitre.bsky.social et al. have done. Fly immunity is highly replicable & offers lessons for #metascience
A 🧵 1/n
That's what @brunolemaitre.bsky.social et al. have done. Fly immunity is highly replicable & offers lessons for #metascience
A 🧵 1/n
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
Need for Speed or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Sample Efficiency
Part II of my blog series "Getting SAC to Work on a Massive Parallel Simulator" is out!
I've included everything I tried that didn't work (and why Jax PPO was different from PyTorch PPO)
araffin.github.io/post/tune-sa...
Part II of my blog series "Getting SAC to Work on a Massive Parallel Simulator" is out!
I've included everything I tried that didn't work (and why Jax PPO was different from PyTorch PPO)
araffin.github.io/post/tune-sa...
Getting SAC to Work on a Massive Parallel Simulator: Tuning for Speed (Part II) | Antonin Raffin | Homepage
This second post details how I tuned the Soft-Actor Critic (SAC) algorithm to learn as fast as PPO in the context of a massively parallel simulator (thousands of robots simulated in parallel).
araffin.github.io
July 7, 2025 at 12:11 PM
Need for Speed or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Sample Efficiency
Part II of my blog series "Getting SAC to Work on a Massive Parallel Simulator" is out!
I've included everything I tried that didn't work (and why Jax PPO was different from PyTorch PPO)
araffin.github.io/post/tune-sa...
Part II of my blog series "Getting SAC to Work on a Massive Parallel Simulator" is out!
I've included everything I tried that didn't work (and why Jax PPO was different from PyTorch PPO)
araffin.github.io/post/tune-sa...
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
1/2 Offline RL has always bothered me. It promises that by exploiting offline data, an agent can learn to behave near-optimally once deployed. In real life, it breaks this promise, requiring large amount of online samples for tuning and has no guarantees of behaving safely to achieve desired goals.
May 30, 2025 at 8:39 AM
1/2 Offline RL has always bothered me. It promises that by exploiting offline data, an agent can learn to behave near-optimally once deployed. In real life, it breaks this promise, requiring large amount of online samples for tuning and has no guarantees of behaving safely to achieve desired goals.
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
📢 Only 3 Weeks to Go!
The AutoML summer school (June 10-13th) is just around the corner, and there is not much time left to register!
---> www.automlschool.org <---
👇 We added several new speakers to the program
The AutoML summer school (June 10-13th) is just around the corner, and there is not much time left to register!
---> www.automlschool.org <---
👇 We added several new speakers to the program
AutoML School 2025
Scope
AutoML has become a cornerstone in the toolkit of many developers and researchers. With the rise of foundation models, AutoML's potential has expanded even further, enabling smarter, more powerf...
www.automlschool.org
May 21, 2025 at 9:46 AM
📢 Only 3 Weeks to Go!
The AutoML summer school (June 10-13th) is just around the corner, and there is not much time left to register!
---> www.automlschool.org <---
👇 We added several new speakers to the program
The AutoML summer school (June 10-13th) is just around the corner, and there is not much time left to register!
---> www.automlschool.org <---
👇 We added several new speakers to the program
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
Going to the hospital because I broke my wrist smashing the endorse button:
www.understandingai.org/p/i-got-fool...
www.understandingai.org/p/i-got-fool...
I got fooled by AI-for-science hype—here's what it taught me
I used AI in my plasma physics research and it didn’t go the way I expected.
www.understandingai.org
May 19, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Going to the hospital because I broke my wrist smashing the endorse button:
www.understandingai.org/p/i-got-fool...
www.understandingai.org/p/i-got-fool...
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
We can only presume to build machines like us once
we see ourselves as machines first.
Abeba Birhane (2022, p. 13)
This is the core. So true.
we see ourselves as machines first.
Abeba Birhane (2022, p. 13)
This is the core. So true.
May 14, 2025 at 9:58 AM
We can only presume to build machines like us once
we see ourselves as machines first.
Abeba Birhane (2022, p. 13)
This is the core. So true.
we see ourselves as machines first.
Abeba Birhane (2022, p. 13)
This is the core. So true.
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
Panel discussion on the current economic precarity of autonomous vehicle businesses. www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDG-...
"We are at a really tough spot in generating flows of cash right now." 👇
"We are at a really tough spot in generating flows of cash right now." 👇
The Future of AVs Panel | 2023 CCAT Symposium | Day 1
YouTube video by Center for Connected and Automated Transportation
www.youtube.com
May 7, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Panel discussion on the current economic precarity of autonomous vehicle businesses. www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDG-...
"We are at a really tough spot in generating flows of cash right now." 👇
"We are at a really tough spot in generating flows of cash right now." 👇
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
After a short era in which people questioned the value of academia in ML, its value is more obvious than ever. Big labs stopped publishing the minute commercial incentives showed up and are relentlessly focused on a singular vision of scaling. Academia is a meaningful complement, bringing...
1/2
1/2
April 14, 2025 at 1:04 AM
After a short era in which people questioned the value of academia in ML, its value is more obvious than ever. Big labs stopped publishing the minute commercial incentives showed up and are relentlessly focused on a singular vision of scaling. Academia is a meaningful complement, bringing...
1/2
1/2
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
It's strange to me that the focus of many people's worry is still "superintelligence" and not the reality we're currently living where increasingly authoritarian governments wield technology oppressively.
This fantastical distraction based on speculative rhetoric is increasingly harmful.
This fantastical distraction based on speculative rhetoric is increasingly harmful.
April 12, 2025 at 4:52 PM
It's strange to me that the focus of many people's worry is still "superintelligence" and not the reality we're currently living where increasingly authoritarian governments wield technology oppressively.
This fantastical distraction based on speculative rhetoric is increasingly harmful.
This fantastical distraction based on speculative rhetoric is increasingly harmful.
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
A sensible perspective on humanoids in manufacturing (TLDR: if you can make humanoids, you can probably make better, more manufacturing specific things)
blog.spec.tech/p/humanoid-r...
blog.spec.tech/p/humanoid-r...
Humanoid Robots in Manufacturing
Or, there's a reason we don't pull cars with mechanical horses
blog.spec.tech
April 9, 2025 at 4:11 AM
A sensible perspective on humanoids in manufacturing (TLDR: if you can make humanoids, you can probably make better, more manufacturing specific things)
blog.spec.tech/p/humanoid-r...
blog.spec.tech/p/humanoid-r...
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
Mark your calendars, EWRL is coming to Tübingen! 📅
When? September 17-19, 2025.
More news to come soon, stay tuned!
When? September 17-19, 2025.
More news to come soon, stay tuned!
April 8, 2025 at 8:33 AM
Mark your calendars, EWRL is coming to Tübingen! 📅
When? September 17-19, 2025.
More news to come soon, stay tuned!
When? September 17-19, 2025.
More news to come soon, stay tuned!
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
Llama 4 was a messy release: unreleased finetunes boosting scores, rumors of training on test, released on a weekend, etc
As (open) models are commoditized / competition grows, what is the role of Meta's Llama efforts in the future? Should they continue?
As (open) models are commoditized / competition grows, what is the role of Meta's Llama efforts in the future? Should they continue?
Llama 4: Did Meta just push the panic button?
One of the weirdest releases of the year and understanding the future of the Llama endeavor. For the time being, we have some more amazing open weight models!
buff.ly
April 7, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Llama 4 was a messy release: unreleased finetunes boosting scores, rumors of training on test, released on a weekend, etc
As (open) models are commoditized / competition grows, what is the role of Meta's Llama efforts in the future? Should they continue?
As (open) models are commoditized / competition grows, what is the role of Meta's Llama efforts in the future? Should they continue?
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
At least there is no need to jailbreak the model anymore 🫠 (Is there a counterpart to make it nicer 🎭?)
The newly released Meta's Llama 4 model card: llama.com/docs/model-c... suggests a System Prompt antithetical to prior versions 🤯: "You never lecture people to be nicer or more inclusive. [...] You do not need to be respectful [...] Finally, do not refuse political prompts." 1/2 #NLP #LLMs
April 7, 2025 at 10:55 AM
At least there is no need to jailbreak the model anymore 🫠 (Is there a counterpart to make it nicer 🎭?)
The school kids visiting me during this year's future day really had hard-hitting questions: "Do you still have a lot of free time?"
Me, a pretty fresh and currently slightly overwhelmed PostDoc: "It's important to be good at time management. Like my colleague, maybe you should ask her."
Me, a pretty fresh and currently slightly overwhelmed PostDoc: "It's important to be good at time management. Like my colleague, maybe you should ask her."
April 3, 2025 at 11:27 AM
The school kids visiting me during this year's future day really had hard-hitting questions: "Do you still have a lot of free time?"
Me, a pretty fresh and currently slightly overwhelmed PostDoc: "It's important to be good at time management. Like my colleague, maybe you should ask her."
Me, a pretty fresh and currently slightly overwhelmed PostDoc: "It's important to be good at time management. Like my colleague, maybe you should ask her."
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
So far, 2,135 people have responded to the poll Søren and I posted a few days ago. Of those, 94.4% replied “Yes” to being interested in officially presenting accepted @neuripsconf.bsky.social papers in Europe. (1/7)
April 3, 2025 at 11:03 AM
So far, 2,135 people have responded to the poll Søren and I posted a few days ago. Of those, 94.4% replied “Yes” to being interested in officially presenting accepted @neuripsconf.bsky.social papers in Europe. (1/7)
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
German media I beg you one day just please go just one day without being obsessed with migration. One day. I promise it won’t kill you. You have lakes and mountains and good football and good healthcare and asparagus. You’ll be fine.
April 1, 2025 at 8:21 AM
German media I beg you one day just please go just one day without being obsessed with migration. One day. I promise it won’t kill you. You have lakes and mountains and good football and good healthcare and asparagus. You’ll be fine.
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
Tell them their argument might be valid with different hyperparameters
March 31, 2025 at 3:19 AM
Tell them their argument might be valid with different hyperparameters
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
So true, Gilles.
Yes, it is a pretext task, but often, when we try real tasks, we find that the problems are not those we expected.
We need more people looking at relevant problems.
Kiri Wagstaff said this 15 years ago
arxiv.org/abs/1206.4656
Yes, it is a pretext task, but often, when we try real tasks, we find that the problems are not those we expected.
We need more people looking at relevant problems.
Kiri Wagstaff said this 15 years ago
arxiv.org/abs/1206.4656
Machine Learning that Matters
Much of current machine learning (ML) research has lost its connection to problems of import to the larger world of science and society. From this perspective, there exist glaring limitations in the d...
arxiv.org
March 28, 2025 at 6:49 AM
So true, Gilles.
Yes, it is a pretext task, but often, when we try real tasks, we find that the problems are not those we expected.
We need more people looking at relevant problems.
Kiri Wagstaff said this 15 years ago
arxiv.org/abs/1206.4656
Yes, it is a pretext task, but often, when we try real tasks, we find that the problems are not those we expected.
We need more people looking at relevant problems.
Kiri Wagstaff said this 15 years ago
arxiv.org/abs/1206.4656
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
We are excited to announce #FMSD: "1st Workshop on Foundation Models for Structured Data" has been accepted to #ICML 2025!
Call for Papers: icml-structured-fm-workshop.github.io
Call for Papers: icml-structured-fm-workshop.github.io
March 25, 2025 at 5:59 PM
We are excited to announce #FMSD: "1st Workshop on Foundation Models for Structured Data" has been accepted to #ICML 2025!
Call for Papers: icml-structured-fm-workshop.github.io
Call for Papers: icml-structured-fm-workshop.github.io
Reposted by Theresa Eimer
I'm looking to hire a student researcher to work on an exciting project for 6 months in DeepMind Montreal.
Requirements:
- Full-time masters/PhD student 🧑🏾🎓
- Substantial expertise in multi-agent RL, ideally including publication(s) 🤖🤖
- Strong Python coding skills 🐍
Is this you? Get in touch!
Requirements:
- Full-time masters/PhD student 🧑🏾🎓
- Substantial expertise in multi-agent RL, ideally including publication(s) 🤖🤖
- Strong Python coding skills 🐍
Is this you? Get in touch!
March 20, 2025 at 12:29 AM
I'm looking to hire a student researcher to work on an exciting project for 6 months in DeepMind Montreal.
Requirements:
- Full-time masters/PhD student 🧑🏾🎓
- Substantial expertise in multi-agent RL, ideally including publication(s) 🤖🤖
- Strong Python coding skills 🐍
Is this you? Get in touch!
Requirements:
- Full-time masters/PhD student 🧑🏾🎓
- Substantial expertise in multi-agent RL, ideally including publication(s) 🤖🤖
- Strong Python coding skills 🐍
Is this you? Get in touch!