Blake Richards
@tyrellturing.bsky.social
Researcher at Google and CIFAR Fellow, working on the intersection of machine learning and neuroscience in Montréal (academic affiliations: @mcgill.ca and @mila-quebec.bsky.social).
Reposted by Blake Richards
It's still freezing in Minneapolis, and crowds are streaming into downtown. Spontaneous anti-ICE chants breaking out on the sidewalk.
January 23, 2026 at 8:18 PM
It's still freezing in Minneapolis, and crowds are streaming into downtown. Spontaneous anti-ICE chants breaking out on the sidewalk.
Reposted by Blake Richards
Can we compress human speech for AI without losing its nuances? FocalCodec proves it’s possible.
By simplifying how tokens are learned, this model paves the way for more efficient multimodal LLMs.
Research explained by Luca Della Libera, Francesco Paissan, Cem Subakan, and Mirco Ravanelli.
By simplifying how tokens are learned, this model paves the way for more efficient multimodal LLMs.
Research explained by Luca Della Libera, Francesco Paissan, Cem Subakan, and Mirco Ravanelli.
FocalCodec: Giving LLMs Ears and a Voice at Ultra-Low Bitrates | Mila
Mila researchers introduces FocalCodec, a new method for compressing speech without sacrificing quality for more efficient multimodal LLMs.
mila.quebec
January 23, 2026 at 7:34 PM
Can we compress human speech for AI without losing its nuances? FocalCodec proves it’s possible.
By simplifying how tokens are learned, this model paves the way for more efficient multimodal LLMs.
Research explained by Luca Della Libera, Francesco Paissan, Cem Subakan, and Mirco Ravanelli.
By simplifying how tokens are learned, this model paves the way for more efficient multimodal LLMs.
Research explained by Luca Della Libera, Francesco Paissan, Cem Subakan, and Mirco Ravanelli.
Reposted by Blake Richards
Peut-on compresser la parole humaine pour les IA sans perdre ses nuances? FocalCodec montre que c’est possible.
En simplifiant la manière dont les tokens sont appris, ce modèle ouvre la voie à des LLM multimodaux plus performants.
À lire ici mila.quebec/fr/article/f...
En simplifiant la manière dont les tokens sont appris, ce modèle ouvre la voie à des LLM multimodaux plus performants.
À lire ici mila.quebec/fr/article/f...
January 23, 2026 at 7:31 PM
Peut-on compresser la parole humaine pour les IA sans perdre ses nuances? FocalCodec montre que c’est possible.
En simplifiant la manière dont les tokens sont appris, ce modèle ouvre la voie à des LLM multimodaux plus performants.
À lire ici mila.quebec/fr/article/f...
En simplifiant la manière dont les tokens sont appris, ce modèle ouvre la voie à des LLM multimodaux plus performants.
À lire ici mila.quebec/fr/article/f...
Reposted by Blake Richards
Canada was founded on these choices.
January 22, 2026 at 11:25 PM
Canada was founded on these choices.
Reposted by Blake Richards
At @elife.bsky.social you can now include explainer videos with every figure. Like going to a seminar while you engage with the paper. First example here elifesciences.org/articles/106...
Click the arrows next to each figure to get a video of @mathiassablemeyer.bsky.social explaining it for you!
Click the arrows next to each figure to get a video of @mathiassablemeyer.bsky.social explaining it for you!
January 22, 2026 at 6:16 PM
At @elife.bsky.social you can now include explainer videos with every figure. Like going to a seminar while you engage with the paper. First example here elifesciences.org/articles/106...
Click the arrows next to each figure to get a video of @mathiassablemeyer.bsky.social explaining it for you!
Click the arrows next to each figure to get a video of @mathiassablemeyer.bsky.social explaining it for you!
Cool looking paper out from @alexkwan.bsky.social's group on impact of psilocybin on routing:
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
@colin-bredenberg.bsky.social, check it out, curious to hear what you think about it in relation to the Oneirogen Hypothesis.
#neuroscience 🧪
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
@colin-bredenberg.bsky.social, check it out, curious to hear what you think about it in relation to the Oneirogen Hypothesis.
#neuroscience 🧪
Psilocybin triggers an activity-dependent rewiring of large-scale cortical networks
Psilocybin reshapes brain networks through activity-dependent plasticity, including
a weakening of recurrent cortical loops that could underlie its therapeutic effects.
www.cell.com
January 22, 2026 at 5:19 PM
Cool looking paper out from @alexkwan.bsky.social's group on impact of psilocybin on routing:
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
@colin-bredenberg.bsky.social, check it out, curious to hear what you think about it in relation to the Oneirogen Hypothesis.
#neuroscience 🧪
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
@colin-bredenberg.bsky.social, check it out, curious to hear what you think about it in relation to the Oneirogen Hypothesis.
#neuroscience 🧪
I'm actually surprised it's not higher - it's not like reviewers and ACs are checking all the references.
NEW: NeurIPS,one of the world’s top academic AI conferences, accepted research papers with 100+ AI-hallucinated citations, new report claims
fortune.com/2026/01/21/n...
fortune.com/2026/01/21/n...
NeurIPS papers contained 100+ AI-hallucinated citations, new report claims | Fortune
An analysis of NeurIPS 2025 papers by startup GPTZero reveals how AI-generated citations are slipping into elite academic research.
fortune.com
January 21, 2026 at 10:02 PM
I'm actually surprised it's not higher - it's not like reviewers and ACs are checking all the references.
Reposted by Blake Richards
This is a really fun story - thanks to @thetransmitter.bsky.social for telling it so well!
When a brain researcher solved a logistical problem by going rogue, the idea proved remarkably infectious.
By @lyrebard.bsky.social
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/brain-imagin...
By @lyrebard.bsky.social
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/brain-imagin...
A brief history of precision self-scanning
When a researcher solved a logistical problem by going rogue, the idea proved remarkably infectious.
www.thetransmitter.org
January 21, 2026 at 8:46 PM
This is a really fun story - thanks to @thetransmitter.bsky.social for telling it so well!
Reposted by Blake Richards
Mafia goon: Nice house you got here...it'd be a shame if something happened to it
Media outlets: Mafia goon rules out use of force. Expresses regret at the mere thought of it
Media outlets: Mafia goon rules out use of force. Expresses regret at the mere thought of it
January 21, 2026 at 2:36 PM
Mafia goon: Nice house you got here...it'd be a shame if something happened to it
Media outlets: Mafia goon rules out use of force. Expresses regret at the mere thought of it
Media outlets: Mafia goon rules out use of force. Expresses regret at the mere thought of it
Reposted by Blake Richards
Let's talk about "grumpy lab person". Many labs have them. With an eye to keeping science at its most rigorous, they cross the line into criticism that's too harsh. They are the ones who risk killing your scientific spirit. They are reviewer 2. /1
January 21, 2026 at 8:36 AM
Let's talk about "grumpy lab person". Many labs have them. With an eye to keeping science at its most rigorous, they cross the line into criticism that's too harsh. They are the ones who risk killing your scientific spirit. They are reviewer 2. /1
Reposted by Blake Richards
We have crossed that line, wherever it was, where world leaders have moved from trying to hold the course to recognizing, well, this:
Carney: "American hegemony in particular helped provide public goods, a stable financial system... this bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition... recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as a weapon. Tariffs as leverage ... "
January 20, 2026 at 5:43 PM
We have crossed that line, wherever it was, where world leaders have moved from trying to hold the course to recognizing, well, this:
Reposted by Blake Richards
I think we’ve got better and more culturally-varied street food than I could have imagined, cool jackets galore, and drugs that make us think we’re really fast and strong before they kill us.
we're getting all the downsides of cyberpunk (social alienation, ruthless hyper capitalism, digital mass surveillance state) but none of the promised upsides (cheap street food, cool jackets, super drugs that make you really fast and strong before they kill you)
January 20, 2026 at 10:02 PM
I think we’ve got better and more culturally-varied street food than I could have imagined, cool jackets galore, and drugs that make us think we’re really fast and strong before they kill us.
Reposted by Blake Richards
Main postdoc study out! We can redefine prefrontal cortex regions with single-unit activity! Grateful to @carlenlab.bsky.social and @weltgeischt.bsky.social who made this crazy project real. Thanks to all co-authors, collaborators, and reviewers.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A prefrontal cortex map based on single-neuron activity - Nature Neuroscience
The authors mapped spontaneous and choice activity across mouse prefrontal cortex. The activity maps aligned with intrinsic connectivity rather than anatomical subregions, suggesting that connectivity...
www.nature.com
January 20, 2026 at 10:53 AM
Main postdoc study out! We can redefine prefrontal cortex regions with single-unit activity! Grateful to @carlenlab.bsky.social and @weltgeischt.bsky.social who made this crazy project real. Thanks to all co-authors, collaborators, and reviewers.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Blake Richards
Again it is something that people in previous eras have commented on but I still find it just astonishing to witness in my own: fascism is somehow the natural ideology of loser men, just all of our most pathetic and contemptible instincts rendered into a worldview.
imagine letting these people run anything more consequential than a lemonade stand
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Elon Musk admits cheating at video games, chat transcript appears to show
Video posted by top gamer shows what he says is X conversation in which billionaire admits ‘account boosting’
www.theguardian.com
January 16, 2026 at 6:43 AM
Again it is something that people in previous eras have commented on but I still find it just astonishing to witness in my own: fascism is somehow the natural ideology of loser men, just all of our most pathetic and contemptible instincts rendered into a worldview.
Reposted by Blake Richards
An underrated factor in "why don't people in wealthy societies have more kids" is changing societal norms that now expect even older kids to be chaperoned by an adult any time they are in public, and to be chauffeured by a parent as their only means of transportation
Older generations spent a lot less time parenting. Millennial dads spend nearly as much time parenting as Boomer moms did. Millennial and Gen X moms way more.
via The Economist
via The Economist
January 16, 2026 at 5:20 AM
An underrated factor in "why don't people in wealthy societies have more kids" is changing societal norms that now expect even older kids to be chaperoned by an adult any time they are in public, and to be chauffeured by a parent as their only means of transportation
Reposted by Blake Richards
"No peaceful demonstrator should ever be killed for standing up to their government. Unless, of course, they’re a suburban mom in an SUV that’s driving away from law enforcement."
We Support Protesting Against Any Authoritarian Government Except Our Own
"President Trump called on Iranians on Tuesday to keep protesting against their government and warned that those responsible for killing demonstrat...
buff.ly
January 14, 2026 at 7:30 PM
"No peaceful demonstrator should ever be killed for standing up to their government. Unless, of course, they’re a suburban mom in an SUV that’s driving away from law enforcement."
Reposted by Blake Richards
We should only fund research that will have huge impact and not fund research that won't. Fortunately, these are easy to distinguish.
- Populists anytime they look at government research funding
- Populists anytime they look at government research funding
January 15, 2026 at 10:21 PM
We should only fund research that will have huge impact and not fund research that won't. Fortunately, these are easy to distinguish.
- Populists anytime they look at government research funding
- Populists anytime they look at government research funding
Reposted by Blake Richards
New eLife paper is out! We explore the link btw 2-phase perception/generation learning methods like wake-sleep, and what may happen in the brain under on psychedelics. Turns out hallucinations are consistent with hijacking phasic learning, essentially running both wake and sleep phases at once.
Our paper on the "Oneirogen hypothesis" is now up in its revised form on eLife!
This is the hypothesis that psychedelics induce a dream-like state, which we show via modelling could explain a variety of perceptual and learning effects from such drugs.
elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...
🧠📈 🧪
This is the hypothesis that psychedelics induce a dream-like state, which we show via modelling could explain a variety of perceptual and learning effects from such drugs.
elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...
🧠📈 🧪
The oneirogen hypothesis: modeling the hallucinatory effects of classical psychedelics in terms of replay-dependent plasticity mechanisms
elifesciences.org
January 15, 2026 at 10:07 PM
New eLife paper is out! We explore the link btw 2-phase perception/generation learning methods like wake-sleep, and what may happen in the brain under on psychedelics. Turns out hallucinations are consistent with hijacking phasic learning, essentially running both wake and sleep phases at once.
Reposted by Blake Richards
I love this so much. After pushback on his recent "Medicine is the only field that reaches 6 sigma" with "my field, psychophysics is so awesome" he posted this. Hurray all Psychophysicists. LETS CELEBRATE PSYCHOPHYSICS. An island of large effects is us!
Psychophysics is a human-facing science with interventions arguably more robust than medicine.
1000 Hurts
Psychophysics is a human-facing science with interventions arguably more robust than medicine.
www.argmin.net
January 15, 2026 at 4:14 PM
I love this so much. After pushback on his recent "Medicine is the only field that reaches 6 sigma" with "my field, psychophysics is so awesome" he posted this. Hurray all Psychophysicists. LETS CELEBRATE PSYCHOPHYSICS. An island of large effects is us!
Reposted by Blake Richards
Really thrilled that this paper led by @neurozz.bsky.social is now published in its final version in @elife.bsky.social!!
This is a memory-focused (as opposed to RL-focused) account of the detailed characteristics of forward and backward awake and sleep replay!
elifesciences.org/articles/99931
This is a memory-focused (as opposed to RL-focused) account of the detailed characteristics of forward and backward awake and sleep replay!
elifesciences.org/articles/99931
A unifying account of replay as context-driven memory reactivation
A context-driven memory model simulates a wide range of characteristics of waking and sleeping hippocampal replay, providing a new account of how and why replay occurs.
elifesciences.org
January 15, 2026 at 1:57 PM
Really thrilled that this paper led by @neurozz.bsky.social is now published in its final version in @elife.bsky.social!!
This is a memory-focused (as opposed to RL-focused) account of the detailed characteristics of forward and backward awake and sleep replay!
elifesciences.org/articles/99931
This is a memory-focused (as opposed to RL-focused) account of the detailed characteristics of forward and backward awake and sleep replay!
elifesciences.org/articles/99931
Reposted by Blake Richards
In spring 2024, Noah Rosenblum and I looked into what a potential Trump administration could do — and was signaling that it /would do/ — to American science. We never published this, but reread it recently and decided to share. The major threats have not changed.
The Supreme Court’s Approach to Government Threatens American Science [April 2024]
In spring 2024, Noah Rosenblum and I wrote this essay about how US science could be threatened by a potential second Trump administration. We ultimately never published it, in part because we didn't want to give any hints to Trump allies about how to attack US science. In retrospect, it
www.infotimes.us
January 15, 2026 at 12:35 PM
In spring 2024, Noah Rosenblum and I looked into what a potential Trump administration could do — and was signaling that it /would do/ — to American science. We never published this, but reread it recently and decided to share. The major threats have not changed.
Reposted by Blake Richards
An amazing paper from James Evans and team: Artificial intelligence tools expand scientists’ impact but contract science’s focus, now in @nature.com
Implications for epistemic diversity in science.
#SciSci #ScAISci
www.science.org/content/arti...
Implications for epistemic diversity in science.
#SciSci #ScAISci
www.science.org/content/arti...
AI has supercharged scientists—but may have shrunk science
Analysis of 41 million papers finds that although AI expands individual impact, it narrows collective scientific exploration
www.science.org
January 14, 2026 at 8:45 PM
An amazing paper from James Evans and team: Artificial intelligence tools expand scientists’ impact but contract science’s focus, now in @nature.com
Implications for epistemic diversity in science.
#SciSci #ScAISci
www.science.org/content/arti...
Implications for epistemic diversity in science.
#SciSci #ScAISci
www.science.org/content/arti...
Reposted by Blake Richards
how it feels to shitpost about academia
January 14, 2026 at 3:51 PM
how it feels to shitpost about academia
Reposted by Blake Richards
This is sickening. UB scientist being held by ICE despite valid visa and no criminal history. Just for making a wrong turn.
www.investigativepost.org/2026/01/14/w...
www.investigativepost.org/2026/01/14/w...
Wrong turn on Peace Bridge lands UB researcher in ICE detention
University at Buffalo research scientist Shovgi Huseynov made a wrong turn on the Peace Bridge & was arrested. He's now in ICE detention.
www.investigativepost.org
January 14, 2026 at 3:58 PM
This is sickening. UB scientist being held by ICE despite valid visa and no criminal history. Just for making a wrong turn.
www.investigativepost.org/2026/01/14/w...
www.investigativepost.org/2026/01/14/w...
Reposted by Blake Richards
Coup de tonnerre au Québec aujourd’hui.
François Legault annonce sa démission.
François Legault annonce sa démission.
January 14, 2026 at 3:32 PM
Coup de tonnerre au Québec aujourd’hui.
François Legault annonce sa démission.
François Legault annonce sa démission.