On behalf of my amazing advisor, I just got back from the ICLR Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where I had the opportunity to run my first ever workshop (HCAIR: From Human Cognition to AI Reasoning: Models, Methods, and Applications).
Overall, it was a great experience and I learned so much, including a lot about AI Safety/Alignment which will be the focus of my PhD dissertation. Currently, I have a few papers that are almost ready for submission focused in this area (including one related to LLMs/hidden user intent, so stay tuned for that!), so attending ICLR to learn more and discuss these ideas couldn’t have come at a better time.
During the workshop, all the speakers were fantastic but a personal highlight for me was getting to introduce Dr. Been Kim, a researcher from Google Deepmind. I’ve known about her work since I began grad school (TCAV, anyone?) so getting to read her papers and then years later see her speak live was a really cool experience. Also, I love chess and her talk focused on methods for better Human-AI Synergy where the use case was using AI to teach superhuman concepts to chess grandmasters. So, its safe to say that I was engaged from the start 🙂 .
Away from the conference, Brazil was incredible. The beaches/scenery was beautiful, and I got the chance to do something I’ve always wanted to: visit Christ the Redeemer (one of the Seven Wonders of the World). Seeing this was surreal and honestly, I still can’t believe that it happened. Now…just six more wonders left to go!