scrappy adjective

having a strong, determined character, and willing to argue or fight for what you want.

Scrappy AI Research Group

The scrappy research group is a collection of passionate, compassionate, and mutually-supportive

^{1}

researchers and researchers-in-training who want to solve problems that impact people's lives and, in the process, contribute to the technical disciplines they love. Scrappy researchers use any available theory and technology to tackle a problem. They're not afraid to learn whole new areas in pursuit of inspiration, embrace or eschew research trends, or apply an unfashionable technique if it gets good results. And they don't give up. They understand that when Einstein said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, he grossly underestimated the perspiration!

When I say supportive, I mean that in every sense. Doing research is a massive push beyond your comfort zone, which is stressful for everyone. This stress is especially acute in AI, where the hype and pace of publication overwhelms even the best of us (even Yann LeCun has commented that he doesn't try to keep up with everything anymore). Focus on your own work, take care of yourself, and take care of each other. Please read 200bn Weight of Responsibility. ↩

Current

We are looking for students!

At present we have funding for one Ph.D. student. For everyone else for the time being, we can only pay you with mentoring, training, and the deep satisfaction of knowing you're making a positive difference in the world.

Veterans!

Are you returning to the human race after serving in the military? Really interested in the material but feeling overwhelmed and a bit terrified? Maybe you got a degree and then didn't use it for 10 years and now you're sitting in class trying to remember how to take the gradient of a vector field. I was in your shoes! Whether you work with me or not, come see me if you want to chat. I'd love to help.