Claas Voelcker
@cvoelcker.bsky.social
For professional, see https://cvoelcker.de
If I seem very angry, check if I have been watered in the last 24 hours.
Now 🇺🇸 flavoured, previously available in 🇨🇦 and 🇩🇪
If I seem very angry, check if I have been watered in the last 24 hours.
Now 🇺🇸 flavoured, previously available in 🇨🇦 and 🇩🇪
Pinned
Claas Voelcker
@cvoelcker.bsky.social
· Nov 11
I'm Claas, a hopefully-soon-finished-PhD researcher at @uoft.bsky.social . I work on reinforcement learning, especially on deep model-based methods, and am dabbling in diffusion policies and large-scale imitation learning.
I'm way too political and loud in general, so please be warned.
I'm way too political and loud in general, so please be warned.
And most importantly, I'm at least 200% nicer than I appear in any given moment, so let me know if you really just want to geek out about random shit!
AI alignment research causes unaligned AI by writing too many lesswrong posts about how it is unaligned 😅 the solution is clear (and socially/morally good): ban lesswrong posting!
This is why the actual AI doom scenario is if the global memeplex ever spews enough anti-AI bs into the noosphere that the concept of AI itself gets pushed into the 'evil' category. Hyperstitioning supervillains because a bunch of people couldn't keep their emotions regulated
the consensus seems to be that models are not inventing evil from first principles, but rather they are formed by correlating vast swaths of human text and recognize that certain concepts are correlated w/one another (that's how LLMs work in the first place), so they see the evil ones as related
November 24, 2025 at 7:53 PM
AI alignment research causes unaligned AI by writing too many lesswrong posts about how it is unaligned 😅 the solution is clear (and socially/morally good): ban lesswrong posting!
How do academic collaborators navigate the increasingly horrible embargo processes at companies like Google? Google co-authors keep telling me that projects might get placed under embargo. That feels like a huge violation of our (academics) IP rights when we collaborate on projects.
November 24, 2025 at 7:38 PM
How do academic collaborators navigate the increasingly horrible embargo processes at companies like Google? Google co-authors keep telling me that projects might get placed under embargo. That feels like a huge violation of our (academics) IP rights when we collaborate on projects.
What is it with roboticists and their undying dedication to python 3.8??? It's 2025!!!
November 24, 2025 at 3:46 PM
What is it with roboticists and their undying dedication to python 3.8??? It's 2025!!!
To be fair, the church was a sponsor of cutting edge arts for like 1.5 millennia, so this isn’t actually that weird if you think about it. Gothic cathedrals were the raves of the high medieval ages (don’t quote me on this, not a historian)
He said "Amen" straight into the drop
Lmao Pope Leo threw a rave for an archbishop's 75th birthday this is kind of incredible
Lmao Pope Leo threw a rave for an archbishop's 75th birthday this is kind of incredible
November 23, 2025 at 6:17 PM
To be fair, the church was a sponsor of cutting edge arts for like 1.5 millennia, so this isn’t actually that weird if you think about it. Gothic cathedrals were the raves of the high medieval ages (don’t quote me on this, not a historian)
Reposted by Claas Voelcker
I'm looking for graduate students to join my group in fall 2026. We work at the intersection of Computer Vision, Deep Learning, and Robotics.
The goal of our work is to create and understand organic 🍀 simulation systems, i.e., controllable data-curation engines built from real-world data. 1/n
The goal of our work is to create and understand organic 🍀 simulation systems, i.e., controllable data-curation engines built from real-world data. 1/n
November 22, 2025 at 8:50 PM
I'm looking for graduate students to join my group in fall 2026. We work at the intersection of Computer Vision, Deep Learning, and Robotics.
The goal of our work is to create and understand organic 🍀 simulation systems, i.e., controllable data-curation engines built from real-world data. 1/n
The goal of our work is to create and understand organic 🍀 simulation systems, i.e., controllable data-curation engines built from real-world data. 1/n
Reposted by Claas Voelcker
And here is the presentation I gave on networking, self-promo, and how to make the most out of a conference. Hope this helps for everyone at NeurIPS!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9hG...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9hG...
Conferencemaxxing: How to grow your profile and network as a scientist
YouTube video by Michael Saxon (NLP & Generative AI research)
www.youtube.com
November 19, 2025 at 11:59 PM
And here is the presentation I gave on networking, self-promo, and how to make the most out of a conference. Hope this helps for everyone at NeurIPS!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9hG...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9hG...
Be the “kernel” for someone
Find someone who loves you more than ML people love saying manifold
November 20, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Be the “kernel” for someone
OK, but ... neither of these names mean anything???
Some news: Open Philanthropy is now Coefficient Giving! Our mission is unchanged but the new name reflects our growing work with other donors to multiply the impact of their giving.
🧵 on our work to make philanthropy a more efficient "market" and plans going forward:
🧵 on our work to make philanthropy a more efficient "market" and plans going forward:
November 18, 2025 at 4:24 PM
OK, but ... neither of these names mean anything???
I might sometimes be a bit of a techno-pessimist, but nothing made me love Waymos more than sharing the street with them as a bike rider. They drive slowly, carefully, and the likelihood they go into road rage mode is ca 0. Universal self driving can’t come fast enough!
November 18, 2025 at 2:28 PM
I might sometimes be a bit of a techno-pessimist, but nothing made me love Waymos more than sharing the street with them as a bike rider. They drive slowly, carefully, and the likelihood they go into road rage mode is ca 0. Universal self driving can’t come fast enough!
Jensen also looks like he doesn’t quite understand what’s happening though, so all good!
I don’t want to seem out of touch but I don’t actually understand the economy anymore.
November 18, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Jensen also looks like he doesn’t quite understand what’s happening though, so all good!
Has anybody gotten any author replies for @iclr-conf.bsky.social yet to their reviews? It is weirdly silent on my site.
November 17, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Has anybody gotten any author replies for @iclr-conf.bsky.social yet to their reviews? It is weirdly silent on my site.
Breaking: Vatican Head of State meets the aus admin team
Pope Leo XIV Will Have Lunch With 4 Trans Women in "Unprecedented" Meeting
https://www.them.us/story/pope-leo-xiv-lunch-trans-activists-alesia-nobile
https://www.them.us/story/pope-leo-xiv-lunch-trans-activists-alesia-nobile
November 16, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Breaking: Vatican Head of State meets the aus admin team
It is as if thousands of researchers suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced
November 11, 2025 at 9:03 PM
It is as if thousands of researchers suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced
LMAO, openreview down point 9pm UCT when ICLR is supposed to be releasing. Coincidence?
November 11, 2025 at 9:01 PM
LMAO, openreview down point 9pm UCT when ICLR is supposed to be releasing. Coincidence?
Damn, ICLR do be late this year
November 11, 2025 at 8:56 PM
Damn, ICLR do be late this year
Reposted by Claas Voelcker
AI could end scarcity, end humanity - or boost trend growth by 0.2 percentage points
November 7, 2025 at 1:24 PM
AI could end scarcity, end humanity - or boost trend growth by 0.2 percentage points
There is a reason an (almost) necessary step in getting a faculty position anywhere in the world is to move to the US for a bit. You suddenly become so much more attractive both inside and outside of the states. This is not good, and university hiring committees as well as governments are at fault.
It’s hard not to feel insulted by the Canadian federal budget’s implication that researchers currently working in Canada aren’t good enough, so they’ll spend a bunch of taxpayer money to bring in “top talent” from elsewhere.
November 6, 2025 at 12:07 AM
There is a reason an (almost) necessary step in getting a faculty position anywhere in the world is to move to the US for a bit. You suddenly become so much more attractive both inside and outside of the states. This is not good, and university hiring committees as well as governments are at fault.
Even though I grieve leaving Toronto, I have to begrudgingly admit that the University of Texas at Austin is pretty gorgeous 😁
November 4, 2025 at 9:49 PM
Even though I grieve leaving Toronto, I have to begrudgingly admit that the University of Texas at Austin is pretty gorgeous 😁
Reposted by Claas Voelcker
Training LLMs end to end is hard. But way more people should, and will, be doing it in the future.
The @hf.co Research team is excited to share their new e-book that covers the full pipeline:
· pre-training,
· post-training,
· infra.
200+ pages of what worked and what didn’t. ⤵️
The @hf.co Research team is excited to share their new e-book that covers the full pipeline:
· pre-training,
· post-training,
· infra.
200+ pages of what worked and what didn’t. ⤵️
November 2, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Training LLMs end to end is hard. But way more people should, and will, be doing it in the future.
The @hf.co Research team is excited to share their new e-book that covers the full pipeline:
· pre-training,
· post-training,
· infra.
200+ pages of what worked and what didn’t. ⤵️
The @hf.co Research team is excited to share their new e-book that covers the full pipeline:
· pre-training,
· post-training,
· infra.
200+ pages of what worked and what didn’t. ⤵️
Comparing furniture prices in the US to Canada shows the massive impact of recent policy. I am floored by how expensive IKEA furniture is here...
November 3, 2025 at 2:52 AM
Comparing furniture prices in the US to Canada shows the massive impact of recent policy. I am floored by how expensive IKEA furniture is here...
The only thing that makes twitter vaguely more attractive than bsky is that I miss @miniapeur.bsky.social here
October 27, 2025 at 4:19 PM
The only thing that makes twitter vaguely more attractive than bsky is that I miss @miniapeur.bsky.social here
I opened twitter (yes, I know, error in itself) and now I'm weirdly depressed again. I don't even get how people say "It has all of the AI news" when most of those AI news are delivered with a certain "You are worth less than a cockroach if you don't breathe $100m startup air"-ne-quoi.
October 27, 2025 at 2:46 PM
I opened twitter (yes, I know, error in itself) and now I'm weirdly depressed again. I don't even get how people say "It has all of the AI news" when most of those AI news are delivered with a certain "You are worth less than a cockroach if you don't breathe $100m startup air"-ne-quoi.
Reposted by Claas Voelcker
I think I posted about it before but never with a thread. We recently put a new preprint on arxiv.
📖 Replicable Reinforcement Learning with Linear Function Approximation
🔗 arxiv.org/abs/2509.08660
In this paper, we study formal replicability in RL with linear function approximation. The... (1/6)
📖 Replicable Reinforcement Learning with Linear Function Approximation
🔗 arxiv.org/abs/2509.08660
In this paper, we study formal replicability in RL with linear function approximation. The... (1/6)
Replicable Reinforcement Learning with Linear Function Approximation
Replication of experimental results has been a challenge faced by many scientific disciplines, including the field of machine learning. Recent work on the theory of machine learning has formalized rep...
arxiv.org
October 26, 2025 at 2:16 PM
I think I posted about it before but never with a thread. We recently put a new preprint on arxiv.
📖 Replicable Reinforcement Learning with Linear Function Approximation
🔗 arxiv.org/abs/2509.08660
In this paper, we study formal replicability in RL with linear function approximation. The... (1/6)
📖 Replicable Reinforcement Learning with Linear Function Approximation
🔗 arxiv.org/abs/2509.08660
In this paper, we study formal replicability in RL with linear function approximation. The... (1/6)