Aran Nayebi

@[email protected]
233 Followers
678 Following
22 Posts

Assistant Professor of Machine Learning, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)

Building a Natural Science of Intelligence 🧠🤖

Prev: ICoN Postdoctoral Fellow @MIT, PhD @Stanford NeuroAILab

Personal Website: https://anayebi.github.io/

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=zGDaMYAAAAAJ searchable on tfr

Websitehttps://cs.cmu.edu/~anayebi
Publicationshttps://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=zGDaMYAAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&gmla=AJsN-F6EkQv3ly2qXwNUq567cBmyYyzA4jb72MsKG5qmrRu_po7d3UX44RXAsg0JPzHWPPpFXnuPSQv1yH0AEasSfkG9HkGF94E6fUDa-oQUligds4LeQOH4nWfg8mydvCMi-2QJftTZ
Twitterhttps://twitter.com/aran_nayebi
Aran NayebiJun 24, 2024

I'm thrilled to share that I'll be joining Carnegie Mellon's (CMU) Machine Learning Department as an Assistant Professor this Fall!

My lab will work at the intersection of neuroscience & AI to reverse-engineer animal intelligence and build the next generation of autonomous agents.
Learn more here: https://anayebi.github.io/files/NeuroAgents_LabPlanIntro_2024.pdf

Feel free to email me if you’re interested or want to collaborate! I’m able to advise PhD students who are either in any department in SCS or the Neural Computation program.

Aran NayebiMar 15, 2024

Really enjoyed speaking with Alison Snyder about the importance of studying embodied cognition in both neuroscience & AI!

https://www.axios.com/2024/03/15/artificial-intelligence-neuroscience-brain-body

What real bodies can show artificial minds

Some AI researchers think "embodied cognition" is a necessary ingredient to achieve advanced AI.

Axios
Aran NayebiNov 21, 2023
I am now also on: @anayebi.bsky.social
Show threadAran NayebiNov 17, 2023
@neuralreckoning @tyrell_turing @Neurograce @DrYohanJohn Totally agree!
Show threadAran NayebiNov 17, 2023
@neuralreckoning @tyrell_turing @Neurograce @DrYohanJohn I feel that’s an unfortunate mischaracterization of computational people, and I don’t think it’s all that productive to make such sweeping statements. I find controls and oracle models really powerful and important to help me understand the data I’m dealing with. In fact, they’re arguably *essential* for any computational statement one wants to make.
Show threadAran NayebiNov 17, 2023
@tyrell_turing @neuralreckoning @Neurograce @DrYohanJohn In addition to always favoring having as many model comparisons as feasible, I’d also point out that what makes the current modeling comparisons more meaningful now is that the hypotheses are all *functional*. They’re our current best attempts at hypotheses that actually work on real tasks, not tens or hundreds of strawmen.
Show threadAran NayebiNov 17, 2023
Now also on arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.09239
On the impossibility of using analogue machines to calculate non-computable functions

A number of examples have been given of physical systems (both classical and quantum mechanical) which when provided with a (continuously variable) computable input will give a non-computable output. It has been suggested that these systems might allow one to design analogue machines which would calculate the values of some number-theoretic non-computable function. Analysis of the examples show that the suggestion is wrong. In Section 4 I claim that given a reasonable definition of analogue machine it will always be wrong. The claim is to be read not so much as a dogmatic assertion, but rather as a challenge. In Sections 1 and 2 I discuss analogue machines, and lay down some conditions which I believe they must satisfy. In Section I discuss the particular forms which a paradigm undecidable problem (or non-computable function) may take. In Sections 5 and 6 I justify any claim for two particular examples lying within the range of classical physics, and in Section 7 I justify it for two (closely connected) examples from quantum mechanics, and discuss, very briefly, other possible quantum mechanical situations. Section 8 contains various remarks and comments. In Section 9 I consider the suggestion made by Penrose that a (future) theory of quantum gravity may predict non-locally-determined, and perhaps non-computable patterns of growth for microsopic structures. My conclusion is that such a theory will have to have non-computability built into it.

arXiv.org
Aran NayebiNov 16, 2023

This comes about a year and a half late -- but if you are interested in learning a bit more about how AI can help us understand questions in neuroscience, the official permanent url of my PhD Dissertation "A Goal-Driven Approach to Systems Neuroscience" can be found here: https://purl.stanford.edu/qk457cr2641, and is now also on arXiv as well: https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.02704

If interested, the video of my dissertation defense can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WED5GPKEv4Q

A goal-driven approach to systems neuroscience

Humans and animals exhibit a range of interesting behaviors in dynamic environments, and it is unclear how our brains actively reformat this dense sensory information to enable these behaviors. Exp...

Aran NayebiNov 8, 2023

Ten years ago, I received a handwritten manuscript by Alan Turing’s only PhD student, Robin Gandy. He wrote it a couple years before passing away in 1995.

AFAIK, it’s never before been in print, so I typeset my copy & put it online here: https://philpapers.org/archive/GANOTI.pdf

A bit of my backstory regarding this manuscript, for those interested in philosophy, physics, and computation: https://twitter.com/aran_nayebi/status/1722302534327701543

Show threadAran NayebiNov 4, 2023
Now also featured on MIT 's main TikTok page! https://www.tiktok.com/@mit/video/7297257256834403627
MIT on TikTok

Can robotics help us understand the brain? #robotics #ai #brain

TikTok