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hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii
@hadivafaii.bsky.social
860 followers 180 following 120 posts
Postdoc at UC Berkeley, Redwood Center | 🧠🤖 | 🎹 | 🎾 | https://mysterioustune.com/
mysterioustune.com
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hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · May 19
Elegant theoretical derivations are exclusive to physics. Right?? Wrong!

In a new preprint, we:
✅ "Derive" a spiking recurrent network from variational principles
✅ Show it does amazing things like out-of-distribution generalization
👉[1/n]🧵

w/ co-lead Dekel Galor & PI @jcbyts.bsky.social

🧠🤖🧠📈
1 12 34
Reposted by Hadi Vafaii
elisennesh.bsky.social
Eli Sennesh @elisennesh.bsky.social · 6d
We started our RL debate series!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0A0...
RL Debate Series: Eli "abolish the value function" Sennesh
YouTube video by Sensorimotor AI
www.youtube.com
1 4 12
Reposted by Hadi Vafaii
nicolecrust.bsky.social
Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · 12h
Wonderful to see this high-level conversation about reinforcement learning happen not just “at the top” but across many professional levels (including trainees). 👏👏👏 to everyone involved. Such a thoughtful way to expedite progress. I look forward to following along.
elisennesh.bsky.social
Eli Sennesh @elisennesh.bsky.social · 6d
We started our RL debate series!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0A0...
RL Debate Series: Eli "abolish the value function" Sennesh
YouTube video by Sensorimotor AI
www.youtube.com
2 2 13
hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · 6d
I'm excited to announce that we've added two more contenders to the RL Debate Series!

- Anne Collins (Professor @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social)
- Niels Leadholm (Research Manager @thousandbrains.org)

Things are heating up!!

See the flyer for details👇

🌎 sensorimotorai.github.io/debates/

🧠🤖🧠📈
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hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · 6d
Join us on Slack: join.slack.com/t/sensorimot...

More info on our website: sensorimotorai.github.io

🧠🤖🧠📈
Join Sensorimotor AI on Slack
Slack is a new way to communicate with your team. It’s faster, better organized, and more secure than email.
join.slack.com
1 1
hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · 6d
The first meeting of the 'RL Debate Series' is now on YouTube!

Watch @elisennesh.bsky.social abolish the value function:

youtube.com/watch?v=E0A0...

🧠🤖🧠📈
1 1 11
Reposted by Hadi Vafaii
markhisted.org
Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 13d
The brain is incredibly densely connected. Human cerebral cortex may have as many as *one trillion* connections.

Most of those cortical connections are recurrent, inside each area. What do they do?

New paper from me in Annual Reviews: 🧪 🧠📈 1/

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
Active Filtering: A Predictive Function of Recurrent Circuits of Sensory Cortex | Annual Reviews
Our brains encode many features of the sensory world into memories: We can sing along with songs we have heard before, interpret spoken and written language composed of words we have learned, and reco...
www.annualreviews.org
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Reposted by Hadi Vafaii
wiringthebrain.bsky.social
Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · 16d
Thanks to @pessoabrain.bsky.social and @thetransmitter.bsky.social for featuring our paper and to @aliyarumana.bsky.social and Peter Tse for engaging so generously with the ideas! 😊 www.thetransmitter.org/the-big-pict...
Beyond Newtonian causation in neuroscience
The traditional mechanistic framework must give way to a richer understanding of how brains actually generate behavior over time.
www.thetransmitter.org
5 17 57
hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · 20d
Now accepted to #NeurIPS2025 - see y'all in sunny San Diego ☀️

Also, big thanks to our reviewers. Their deep reading of the paper and thoughtful feedback really helped sharpen our contributions.

Stay tuned for a much-enhanced final version in a couple weeks!
hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · May 19
Elegant theoretical derivations are exclusive to physics. Right?? Wrong!

In a new preprint, we:
✅ "Derive" a spiking recurrent network from variational principles
✅ Show it does amazing things like out-of-distribution generalization
👉[1/n]🧵

w/ co-lead Dekel Galor & PI @jcbyts.bsky.social

🧠🤖🧠📈
6
Reposted by Hadi Vafaii
gracekind.net
Grace @gracekind.net · 21d
Very good juxtaposition
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hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · 20d
Hi Sid, you can join our Slack, where we share Zoom link (and other info): join.slack.com/t/sensorimot...
Join Sensorimotor AI on Slack
Slack is a new way to communicate with your team. It’s faster, better organized, and more secure than email.
join.slack.com
1 1
hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · 21d
Join 170+ interdisciplinary researchers from around the world who are pursuing a deeper, first-principles understanding of AI and active learning 🧠🤖🧠📈

💬 Join the conversation on Slack: join.slack.com/t/sensorimot...
🌍 Our website: sensorimotorai.github.io

See you on Slack!

🧵[5/5]
Join Sensorimotor AI on Slack
Slack is a new way to communicate with your team. It’s faster, better organized, and more secure than email.
join.slack.com
1 6
hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · 21d
Not all 'active' learning is 'reinforcement' learning.

➡️ This suggests we need to upgrade—or even replace—RL with a more general theory of active learning that's not solely reward-based

✅Which is why we are launching the RL Debates

More info: sensorimotorai.github.io/debates/

🧵[4/5]

🧠🤖🧠📈
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hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · 21d
For decades, reinforcement learning (RL) has been synonymous with "active learning".

This figure from Sutton & Barto's classic textbook summarizes the standard view👇

🤔 But what if the premise of an 'external, scalar reward' is a simplification we need to move past?

🧵[3/5]
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hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · 21d
🌍 More info on our website: sensorimotorai.github.io/debates/
💬 Join us on Slack: join.slack.com/t/sensorimot...

💡 The main motivation: recognizing how central "action" is in all things intelligence

Perception, cognition, and knowledge are fundamentally intertwined with "action"

🧵[2/5]
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hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · 21d
What drives behavior in living organisms? And how can we design artificial agents that learn interactively?

📢 To address these, the Sensorimotor AI Journal Club is launching the "RL Debate Series"👇

w/ @elisennesh.bsky.social, @noreward4u.bsky.social, @tommasosalvatori.bsky.social

🧵[1/5]

🧠🤖🧠📈
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hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · Sep 5
Interested in attending future meetings?

Join 150+ researchers from around the world who want a deeper understanding of AI 🧠🤖

Here's our Slack invite:

join.slack.com/t/sensorimot...

🧠🤖🧠📈
Join Sensorimotor AI on Slack
Slack is a new way to communicate with your team. It’s faster, better organized, and more secure than email.
join.slack.com
hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · Sep 5
In the second meeting of 'Sensorimotor AI Journal Club' we covered:

📜 (B)ayesian (O)nline learning in (N)on-stationary (E)nvironments (BONE; openreview.net/forum?id=ose...)

Many thanks to the first author Gerardo for an amazing presentation!

🎥 watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=49PP...

🧠🤖🧠📈
Bayesian online learning in non-stationary environments (BONE) by Duran-Martin et al., 2025
YouTube video by Sensorimotor AI
www.youtube.com
1 3 11
Reposted by Hadi Vafaii
elisennesh.bsky.social
Eli Sennesh @elisennesh.bsky.social · Aug 30
Had a great time visiting Berkeley's Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience!

archive.org/details/Redw...
Eli Sennesh: Oscillations, but not Spike Rates, Encode Predictive Processing : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Talk by Eli Sennesh of Vanderbilt University.  Given to the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience at UC Berkeley.Abstract: The appearance at the...
archive.org
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hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · Aug 31
"2000s Dad Rock" is a thing 🙂
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hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · Aug 30
I like dad rock
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hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · Aug 17
We need bio-magic for consciousness… until we build it in silico
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hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · Aug 10
Interested? Join our Slack, along with 110+ researchers from around the world who want a deeper understanding of AI 🧠🤖

Here's our Slack: join.slack.com/t/sensorimot...

🧵[4/4]
Join Sensorimotor AI on Slack
Slack is a new way to communicate with your team. It’s faster, better organized, and more secure than email.
join.slack.com
3
hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · Aug 10
This time we covered "Bayesian Online Natural Gradient (BONG)".

📅 Next meeting (September 4):

We explore BONE (openreview.net/forum?id=ose...), which tackles a crucial problem:

💡 How can AI systems adapt when the world keeps changing? (Non-stationary environments)

🧵[3/4]
A unifying framework for generalised Bayesian online learning in...
We propose a unifying framework for methods that perform probabilistic online learning in non-stationary environments. We call the framework BONE, which stands for generalised (B)ayesian (O)nline...
openreview.net
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hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · Aug 10
btw, I know everyone knows these points about real-world deployment, energy efficiency, etc.

But the incentive structures often push us toward short-term wins over fundamental understanding.

In our JC, we read papers that take the longer view, exploring deeper principles.

🧵[2/4]
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hadivafaii.bsky.social
Hadi Vafaii @hadivafaii.bsky.social · Aug 10
Our first 'Sensorimotor AI Journal Club' meeting was a blast!

(...which, we might as well just call the "AI Club for Non-conformists"👇😎)

📽️ full presentation: youtube.com/watch?v=efc7...

🧵[1/4]

🧠🤖🧠📈
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