Tim van Erven
@timvanerven.nl
1K followers 370 following 76 posts
Associate professor in machine learning at the University of Amsterdam. Topics: (online) learning theory and the mathematics of interpretable AI. www.timvanerven.nl Theory of Interpretable AI seminar: https://tverven.github.io/tiai-seminar
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Reposted by Tim van Erven
jessicahullman.bsky.social
Looking forward to talking about our work on the value of explanation for decision-making at this workshop
timvanerven.nl
Excellent bachelor's thesis by my student David van Batenburg with a mathematically rigorous treatment of the axiomatic characterization of Shapley values for feature attribution:

arxiv.org/abs/2510.03281

Clears up and corrects many math aspects that tripped me up when first learning about SHAP.
Mathematically rigorous proofs for Shapley explanations
Machine Learning is becoming increasingly more important in today's world. It is therefore very important to provide understanding of the decision-making process of machine-learning models. A popular ...
arxiv.org
Reposted by Tim van Erven
gokul.dev
Late, but arxiv.org/abs/0804.2996 is *incredible*, so many good lines (e.g., "This comes close to being an accusation of a false claim of priority for a false discovery of an untrue fact, which would be a rare triple-negative in the history of intellectual property disputes.").
The Epic Story of Maximum Likelihood
At a superficial level, the idea of maximum likelihood must be prehistoric: early hunters and gatherers may not have used the words ``method of maximum likelihood'' to describe their choice of where a...
arxiv.org
Reposted by Tim van Erven
ulrikeluxburg.bsky.social
I am hiring PhD students and/or Postdocs, to work on the theory of explainable machine learning. Please apply through Ellis or IMPRS, deadlines end october/mid november. In particular: Women, where are you? Our community needs you!!!

imprs.is.mpg.de/application
ellis.eu/news/ellis-p...
Reposted by Tim van Erven
amp1874.bsky.social
I reported a paper with fake citations to the Neurips editors a few months ago, and I've been informed Neurips will be introducing systematic checking of citations.
timvanerven.nl
Many interesting ideas in Tobias' talk today!

You can still watch the recording: youtu.be/IZ4m_II3DVI
Reposted by Tim van Erven
let-all.com
Wanna chat with an experienced learning theory researcher? We have open office hours online with four awesome folks, Surbhi Goel (@surbhigoel.bsky.social), Gautam Kamath (@gautamkamath.com), Ayush Sekhari, and Lydia Zakynthinou)!

Book a slot and ask them anything!
let-all.com/officehours....
timvanerven.nl
Happening today!
timvanerven.nl
🚨 The Theory of Interpretable AI Seminar is back after the summer!
🎙️ Tobias Leemann: On Identifiability & Representational Power of Post-Hoc Explanations
📅 Sept 9, 4PM CET / 10AM EST
📍 Online: uva-live.zoom.us/j/87120549999
🔗 Website: tverven.github.io/tiai-seminar/
timvanerven.nl
🚨 The Theory of Interpretable AI Seminar is back after the summer!
🎙️ Tobias Leemann: On Identifiability & Representational Power of Post-Hoc Explanations
📅 Sept 9, 4PM CET / 10AM EST
📍 Online: uva-live.zoom.us/j/87120549999
🔗 Website: tverven.github.io/tiai-seminar/
timvanerven.nl
The Netherlands now also has a call out to poach top international (non-EU) researchers whose academic freedom is threatened. Possibility to apply for 1M euro; need to be nominated by a Dutch research institution, which requires a recognizable strong profile. www.nwo.nl/en/calls/tulip-fund
Tulip Fund | NWO
Academic freedom is under mounting pressure on a global scale. The Tulip Fund offers international top researchers and top talents with their own line of research the opportunity to continue their research in the Netherlands.
www.nwo.nl
timvanerven.nl
Usually, this type of formulation is just to push for a lower acceptance rate, so I'm guessing that is the real motivation (which may be a valid reason, but it would have been better to just say so directly).
Reposted by Tim van Erven
Reposted by Tim van Erven
timnitgebru.bsky.social
Lol, we need the "AI" that is killing the environment and guzzling untold amounts of resources to save the environment. This is 1984 type of marketing, like "ministry of peace" that is actually the war department.
timvanerven.nl
The policy is wise for future conferences, but I think punishing this year's authors is uncalled for: unless there is a policy in place to forbid these types of prompts, I would consider them more of a cheeky (and actually rather funny) way to protest against broken AI reviews than actual misconduct
timvanerven.nl
The unsustainability of long distance flights to conferences is a valid concern. Clearly, meeting international experts is important for high-level research, but dynamic regional events to supplement huge monolithic conferences might even make that easier. We need more experiments like EurIPS asap.
pierremarion.bsky.social
🌍 Would be better if authors were allowed to present at officially endorsed hubs or online instead — ensuring fair and equitable participation, and ultimately creating a better NeurIPS for everyone.

Interesting in knowing more: read our full opinion piece ⬇️. docs.google.com/document/d/1...
4/4
Towards decentralized ML conferences
Towards decentralized ML conferences Pierre Marion July 2025 Abstract: Large ML conferences play a central role in our community, by providing a rigorous review process and a venue for meaningful di...
docs.google.com
Reposted by Tim van Erven
euripsconf.bsky.social
EurIPS is coming! 📣 Mark your calendar for Dec. 2-7, 2025 in Copenhagen 📅

EurIPS is a community-organized conference where you can present accepted NeurIPS 2025 papers, endorsed by @neuripsconf.bsky.social and @nordicair.bsky.social and is co-developed by @ellis.eu

eurips.cc
Reposted by Tim van Erven
timvanerven.nl
4th AI & Mathematics in NL workshop in Tilburg.

Many cool presentations: aimath.nl/index.php/20...

And great people:
timvanerven.nl
Great talks make complicated things so clear they seem easy. This was such a talk: youtu.be/nCR8hWgvwTI?...