Oliver Lemon
@oliverlemon.bsky.social
Prof in CS; Academic Lead of National Robotarium; ELLIS Fellow; Edinburgh Centre for Robotics; Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh. Postdocs at Stanford and Edinburgh. Research in NLP, dialogue, conversational AI, multimodality, robots, embodied AI, collaborative AI
Pinned
Oliver Lemon
@oliverlemon.bsky.social
· Jan 27
Applying to CDT-D2AIR | Edinburgh Centre for Robotics
We are now accepting applications for the September 2025 cohort in the UKRI AI Centre for Doctoral Training in Dependable and Deployable AI for Robotics (CDT-D2AIR), a 4-year PhD programme jointly off...
www.edinburgh-robotics.org
Looking to do PhD in AI? Our CDT program AI for Robotics (CDT-D2AIR) offers funding & a supportive research environment -- september 2025 intake now open!
#GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML #PhD @heriotwattuni.bsky.social
Learn more & apply here: www.edinburgh-robotics.org/apply
#GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML #PhD @heriotwattuni.bsky.social
Learn more & apply here: www.edinburgh-robotics.org/apply
Important
A study highlights the need for regulations on AI-powered autonomous weapon systems (AI-LAWS), emphasizing unpredictability risks that threaten military effectiveness. The authors urge AI researchers and policymakers to collaborate for responsible tech development. https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.18371
Military AI Needs Technically-Informed Regulation to Safeguard AI Research and its Applications
ArXiv link for Military AI Needs Technically-Informed Regulation to Safeguard AI Research and its Applications
arxiv.org
November 14, 2025 at 6:35 PM
Important
Reposted by Oliver Lemon
Our final SPRING Project paper has just been published in the International Journal of Social Robotics! 🎉
📄 Socially Pertinent Robots in Gerontological Healthcare
We explore how hospital patients and our robot Ari can engage in natural, useful conversations
🔗 link.springer.com/article/10.1...
📄 Socially Pertinent Robots in Gerontological Healthcare
We explore how hospital patients and our robot Ari can engage in natural, useful conversations
🔗 link.springer.com/article/10.1...
November 8, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Our final SPRING Project paper has just been published in the International Journal of Social Robotics! 🎉
📄 Socially Pertinent Robots in Gerontological Healthcare
We explore how hospital patients and our robot Ari can engage in natural, useful conversations
🔗 link.springer.com/article/10.1...
📄 Socially Pertinent Robots in Gerontological Healthcare
We explore how hospital patients and our robot Ari can engage in natural, useful conversations
🔗 link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Great idea, and increasingly important to do this work.
Workshopping the idea of a Turing test for embodied AI agents, where you give participants one minute to mess with a robot and then say whether it's tele-operated or not. Thoughts?
October 27, 2025 at 7:33 AM
Great idea, and increasingly important to do this work.
Reposted by Oliver Lemon
Eating less/no animal products (especially beef), composting food waste, and demanding your community quickly transition away from fossil fuels are great ways to reduce methane emissions — and therefore help coral reefs because not all hope is lost!!
October 16, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Eating less/no animal products (especially beef), composting food waste, and demanding your community quickly transition away from fossil fuels are great ways to reduce methane emissions — and therefore help coral reefs because not all hope is lost!!
Reposted by Oliver Lemon
Think your LLMs “understand” words like although/but/therefore? Think again!
They perform at chance for making inferences from certain discourse connectives expressing concession
They perform at chance for making inferences from certain discourse connectives expressing concession
"Although I hate leafy vegetables, I prefer daxes to blickets." Can you tell if daxes are leafy vegetables? LM's can't seem to! 📷
We investigate if LMs capture these inferences from connectives when they cannot rely on world knowledge.
New paper w/ Daniel, Will, @jessyjli.bsky.social
We investigate if LMs capture these inferences from connectives when they cannot rely on world knowledge.
New paper w/ Daniel, Will, @jessyjli.bsky.social
October 16, 2025 at 5:02 PM
Think your LLMs “understand” words like although/but/therefore? Think again!
They perform at chance for making inferences from certain discourse connectives expressing concession
They perform at chance for making inferences from certain discourse connectives expressing concession
Open PhD position in embodied AI, Edinburgh - applications closing soon!
PhD position available ! - Generative AI for Embodied Collaborative Agents (eg. robots :) - Please distribute
PhD position in Generative AI for Embodied Collaborative Agents: #GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML #PhD @heriotwattuni.bsky.social - please contact me ASAP if you are interested !
sites.google.com/site/hwinter...
sites.google.com/site/hwinter...
October 16, 2025 at 7:50 AM
Open PhD position in embodied AI, Edinburgh - applications closing soon!
PhD positions in AI/Robotics/NLP -- deadline Friday, 14 November 2025 ! Edinburgh, Scotland 🤖🗣️ -- please share!
www.cdt-d2air.uk
www.cdt-d2air.uk
October 3, 2025 at 12:55 PM
PhD positions in AI/Robotics/NLP -- deadline Friday, 14 November 2025 ! Edinburgh, Scotland 🤖🗣️ -- please share!
www.cdt-d2air.uk
www.cdt-d2air.uk
Reposted by Oliver Lemon
Looking to do PhD in AI? Our CDT program AI for Robotics (CDT-D2AIR) offers funding & a supportive research environment -- september 2025 intake now open!
#GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML #PhD @heriotwattuni.bsky.social
Learn more & apply here: www.edinburgh-robotics.org/apply
#GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML #PhD @heriotwattuni.bsky.social
Learn more & apply here: www.edinburgh-robotics.org/apply
Applying to CDT-D2AIR | Edinburgh Centre for Robotics
We are now accepting applications for the September 2025 cohort in the UKRI AI Centre for Doctoral Training in Dependable and Deployable AI for Robotics (CDT-D2AIR), a 4-year PhD programme jointly off...
www.edinburgh-robotics.org
January 27, 2025 at 9:22 AM
Looking to do PhD in AI? Our CDT program AI for Robotics (CDT-D2AIR) offers funding & a supportive research environment -- september 2025 intake now open!
#GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML #PhD @heriotwattuni.bsky.social
Learn more & apply here: www.edinburgh-robotics.org/apply
#GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML #PhD @heriotwattuni.bsky.social
Learn more & apply here: www.edinburgh-robotics.org/apply
Reposted by Oliver Lemon
🚀 Shape the future of European AI! The @ellis.eu PhD Programme is opening for applications.
🧠 Work with top researchers, join joint supervision 🤝 and benefit from networking 🌐 & training 🎓
Info session: Oct 1, 16:00 CET.
Everything you need to know is one click away 👉 ellis.eu/news/ellis-p...
🧠 Work with top researchers, join joint supervision 🤝 and benefit from networking 🌐 & training 🎓
Info session: Oct 1, 16:00 CET.
Everything you need to know is one click away 👉 ellis.eu/news/ellis-p...
September 24, 2025 at 6:34 AM
🚀 Shape the future of European AI! The @ellis.eu PhD Programme is opening for applications.
🧠 Work with top researchers, join joint supervision 🤝 and benefit from networking 🌐 & training 🎓
Info session: Oct 1, 16:00 CET.
Everything you need to know is one click away 👉 ellis.eu/news/ellis-p...
🧠 Work with top researchers, join joint supervision 🤝 and benefit from networking 🌐 & training 🎓
Info session: Oct 1, 16:00 CET.
Everything you need to know is one click away 👉 ellis.eu/news/ellis-p...
Reposted by Oliver Lemon
This week's #PaperILike is "Hi Robot: Open-Ended Instruction Following with Hierarchical Vision-Language-Action Models" (Shi et al., ICML 2025).
I'm often asked: how might we combine ideas from hierarchical planning and VLAs? This is a good start!
PDF: arxiv.org/abs/2502.19417
I'm often asked: how might we combine ideas from hierarchical planning and VLAs? This is a good start!
PDF: arxiv.org/abs/2502.19417
Hi Robot: Open-Ended Instruction Following with Hierarchical Vision-Language-Action Models
Generalist robots that can perform a range of different tasks in open-world settings must be able to not only reason about the steps needed to accomplish their goals, but also process complex instruct...
arxiv.org
September 14, 2025 at 3:37 PM
This week's #PaperILike is "Hi Robot: Open-Ended Instruction Following with Hierarchical Vision-Language-Action Models" (Shi et al., ICML 2025).
I'm often asked: how might we combine ideas from hierarchical planning and VLAs? This is a good start!
PDF: arxiv.org/abs/2502.19417
I'm often asked: how might we combine ideas from hierarchical planning and VLAs? This is a good start!
PDF: arxiv.org/abs/2502.19417
PhD position available ! - Generative AI for Embodied Collaborative Agents (eg. robots :) - Please distribute
PhD position in Generative AI for Embodied Collaborative Agents: #GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML #PhD @heriotwattuni.bsky.social - please contact me ASAP if you are interested !
sites.google.com/site/hwinter...
sites.google.com/site/hwinter...
The Interaction Lab - PhD position in Embodied AI
PhD Position: Multimodal Generative AI for Embodied Collaborative Agents
Location: Edinburgh, United Kingdom, Interaction Lab and National Robotarium , Heriot-Watt University
Collaboration with Toshib...
sites.google.com
August 14, 2025 at 2:53 PM
PhD position available ! - Generative AI for Embodied Collaborative Agents (eg. robots :) - Please distribute
PhD position in Generative AI for Embodied Collaborative Agents: #GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML #PhD @heriotwattuni.bsky.social - please contact me ASAP if you are interested !
sites.google.com/site/hwinter...
sites.google.com/site/hwinter...
The Interaction Lab - PhD position in Embodied AI
PhD Position: Multimodal Generative AI for Embodied Collaborative Agents
Location: Edinburgh, United Kingdom, Interaction Lab and National Robotarium , Heriot-Watt University
Collaboration with Toshib...
sites.google.com
June 18, 2025 at 3:54 PM
PhD position in Generative AI for Embodied Collaborative Agents: #GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML #PhD @heriotwattuni.bsky.social - please contact me ASAP if you are interested !
sites.google.com/site/hwinter...
sites.google.com/site/hwinter...
Full Professor position in AI/CS -- Deadline for applications 23rd June!
Prof position in CA/ AI -- Apply here ! www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/42...
June 16, 2025 at 9:38 AM
Full Professor position in AI/CS -- Deadline for applications 23rd June!
Reposted by Oliver Lemon
Prof position in CA/ AI -- Apply here ! www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/42...
May 30, 2025 at 12:36 PM
Prof position in CA/ AI -- Apply here ! www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/42...
Reposted by Oliver Lemon
The regular submission deadline for SIGdial 2025 has now passed...
But we are still welcoming submissions through ACL Rolling Review 🎉
ARR Commitment Deadline: June 6th
Acceptance notifications will be on June 20th, and then SIGdial will be held in Avignon, France: August 25th - 27th
But we are still welcoming submissions through ACL Rolling Review 🎉
ARR Commitment Deadline: June 6th
Acceptance notifications will be on June 20th, and then SIGdial will be held in Avignon, France: August 25th - 27th
June 2, 2025 at 9:07 PM
The regular submission deadline for SIGdial 2025 has now passed...
But we are still welcoming submissions through ACL Rolling Review 🎉
ARR Commitment Deadline: June 6th
Acceptance notifications will be on June 20th, and then SIGdial will be held in Avignon, France: August 25th - 27th
But we are still welcoming submissions through ACL Rolling Review 🎉
ARR Commitment Deadline: June 6th
Acceptance notifications will be on June 20th, and then SIGdial will be held in Avignon, France: August 25th - 27th
Reposted by Oliver Lemon
Oh yes, here's the link to the actual pre-print: arxiv.org/abs/2504.08590
Playpen: An Environment for Exploring Learning Through Conversational Interaction
Interaction between learner and feedback-giver has come into focus recently for post-training of Large Language Models (LLMs), through the use of reward models that judge the appropriateness of a mode...
arxiv.org
May 29, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Oh yes, here's the link to the actual pre-print: arxiv.org/abs/2504.08590
Reposted by Oliver Lemon
🚨 New pre-print! (Well, new & much improved version in any case.) 🚨
If you're interested in LLM post-training techniques and in how to make LLMs better "language users", read this thread, introducing the "LM Playpen".
If you're interested in LLM post-training techniques and in how to make LLMs better "language users", read this thread, introducing the "LM Playpen".
May 29, 2025 at 8:41 PM
🚨 New pre-print! (Well, new & much improved version in any case.) 🚨
If you're interested in LLM post-training techniques and in how to make LLMs better "language users", read this thread, introducing the "LM Playpen".
If you're interested in LLM post-training techniques and in how to make LLMs better "language users", read this thread, introducing the "LM Playpen".
Prof position in CA/ AI -- Apply here ! www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/42...
May 30, 2025 at 12:36 PM
Prof position in CA/ AI -- Apply here ! www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/42...
Reposted by Oliver Lemon
Job advert! Chair (full professor) in AI at Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh #GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML @heriotwattuni.bsky.social
Learn more & apply here: enzj.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
Learn more & apply here: enzj.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
Chair of Artificial Intelligence
An exciting opportunity to join the Department of Computer Science during an exciting period of growth as our Chair of Artificial Intelligence. Our campus is home to the National Robotarium, a world-l...
enzj.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com
May 20, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Job advert! Chair (full professor) in AI at Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh #GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML @heriotwattuni.bsky.social
Learn more & apply here: enzj.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
Learn more & apply here: enzj.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
All aspects of AI are in scope, including NLP, multimodality, embodied AI... DM me with questions!
Job advert! Chair (full professor) in AI at Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh #GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML @heriotwattuni.bsky.social
Learn more & apply here: enzj.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
Learn more & apply here: enzj.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
Chair of Artificial Intelligence
An exciting opportunity to join the Department of Computer Science during an exciting period of growth as our Chair of Artificial Intelligence. Our campus is home to the National Robotarium, a world-l...
enzj.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com
May 24, 2025 at 2:32 PM
All aspects of AI are in scope, including NLP, multimodality, embodied AI... DM me with questions!
Job advert! Chair (full professor) in AI at Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh #GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML @heriotwattuni.bsky.social
Learn more & apply here: enzj.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
Learn more & apply here: enzj.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
Chair of Artificial Intelligence
An exciting opportunity to join the Department of Computer Science during an exciting period of growth as our Chair of Artificial Intelligence. Our campus is home to the National Robotarium, a world-l...
enzj.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com
May 20, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Job advert! Chair (full professor) in AI at Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh #GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML @heriotwattuni.bsky.social
Learn more & apply here: enzj.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
Learn more & apply here: enzj.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
Reposted by Oliver Lemon
We are hiring ! new faculty positions in AI, NLP, interactive robotics #GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML @heriotwattuni.bsky.social enzj.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
Assistant Professor - Computer Sciences
You will join the School of Mathematical & Computer Sciences at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. The department of Computer Science within the School is internationally renowned for its ...
enzj.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com
April 10, 2025 at 1:44 PM
We are hiring ! new faculty positions in AI, NLP, interactive robotics #GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML @heriotwattuni.bsky.social enzj.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
In a nutshell — here’s what we are working on at Edinburgh Centre for Robotics and the National Robotarium - our Research Themes @heriotwattuni.bsky.social #GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML #PhD thenationalrobotarium.com/research-the...
Research Themes - The National Robotarium
The National Robotarium is home to a diverse range of expertise in robotics and Artificial Intelligence.Researchers from Heriot-Watt University and The University of Edinburgh work across the followin...
thenationalrobotarium.com
May 6, 2025 at 1:55 PM
In a nutshell — here’s what we are working on at Edinburgh Centre for Robotics and the National Robotarium - our Research Themes @heriotwattuni.bsky.social #GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML #PhD thenationalrobotarium.com/research-the...
Reposted by Oliver Lemon
New - PhD position in Generative AI for Embodied Collaborative Agents: #GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML #PhD @heriotwattuni.bsky.social
sites.google.com/site/hwinter...
sites.google.com/site/hwinter...
The Interaction Lab - PhD position in Embodied AI
PhD Position: Multimodal Generative AI for Embodied Collaborative Agents
Location: Edinburgh, United Kingdom, Interaction Lab and National Robotarium , Heriot-Watt University
Collaboration with Toshib...
sites.google.com
April 15, 2025 at 11:42 AM
New - PhD position in Generative AI for Embodied Collaborative Agents: #GenAI #NLProc #HRI #ELLISforEurope #AI #ML #PhD @heriotwattuni.bsky.social
sites.google.com/site/hwinter...
sites.google.com/site/hwinter...