Recent content in Ecce Homology on Bastian Grossenbacher Rieck's personal homepage
In the wake of yet another major conference getting swamped by too many submissions, and many participants using AI in irresponsible ways, 1 I would like to suggest a simple social fix: 2 Like the Order of the Engineer , our field should also have a pledge , serving as some form of commitment device. My (arguably naïve) idea is that such a pledge will help us maintain consistency and remind us…
I recently turned 40. With many folks warning me about the looming midlife crisis , whose onset I do not remotely feel at the moment, I was told that I now had only a restricted number of options: I could get into sports cars, artisanal coffee, or gravel cycling . I rejected all of these options and chose something different instead, more in line with the usual propensity of an academic to indulge…
Just as Socrates said that “The unexamined life is not worth living,” , so the unexamined model is not worth training (in machine learning). We often do it anyway but we really shouldn’t. 1 Many machine learning researchers, I myself being no exception, have a soft spot for what one may call unexamined engineering practices. 2 One of these is our propensity for joining together a…
“May you live in interesting times,” they say. Well, here we are: OpenAI disproves a central conjecture in discrete geometry . The pope writes an encyclical on AI . One of the co-founders of Anthropic broadly agrees with many of the points raised therein . We are truly living in a non-production branch of reality… In this post, I want to briefly comment on the encyclical, entitled…
While academic institutions are scrambling to pretend that they are at least partially in control of the AI revolution, some more established actors have already had to adopt new measures. The venerable arXiv , for example, recently announced that they will ban authors for a year under certain circumstances: If a submission contains incontrovertible evidence that the authors did not check the…
During my doctoral studies, I learned a lot of things about me that I did not know before. I gazed into the abyss, as one is wont to do, and the abyss winked back at me. I rejoiced at new insights just to discard them again a couple of days because they turned out to be wrong. But most importantly, I learned the value of cultivating epistemic humility . That is, I learned to understand that,…
You may already be aware of John Baez’s “Crackpot Index” , which provides a simple tongue-in-cheek scoring system for assessing whether a research contribution to physics is likely “revolutionary.” The list contain such gems as “40 points for comparing yourself to Galileo, suggesting that a modern-day Inquisition is hard at work on your case, and so on.”…
Sooner or later, every deep learning researcher encounters the essay “ The Bitter Lesson .” Written by Rich Sutton , an early pioneer of what we today would call “Artificial Intelligence” (AI), the essay presents a crucial insight obtained from decades of research: In the long run, approaches that scale better with available computational power tend to outperform…
Continuing the tradition , here is a brief, number-based summary of 2025. As usual, the good old academic KPIs come first since, in the absence of knowing what is important to measure, we settle for measuring that which is convenient . In 2025, the AIDOS Lab … …published 12 conference or journal papers (with 7 of them appearing in my favorite machine learning conferences) …published 5 workshop…
AI is omnipresent. With speculations on its capabilities running rampant, it is time to slow down a bit and assume a broader perspective. This is an article I wrote for a general audience, so if you are already in the know, please forgive me for taking some shortcuts for the sake of exposition. Automatons In The Iliad As it turns out, AI has been with us for much, much, longer. Already Homer…
To the surprise of exactly no one, AI tools are also rapidly changing the landscape of higher education. Whether for good or for worse is something that I am debating with myself every day—I vacillate between “Butlerian Jihad Now!” and a non-ironic “O brave new world, that has such algorithms in ’t.” Starting with the good parts, I see students working on their…
Barring a major “Mad Max” type scenario (which would anyway make all our hard-earned skills obsolete) recent discussions lead me to believe that one of the key skills in the future will be the ability to communicate concisely. We could call it “cutting through the BS” or “anti-slop vision,” but it appears to me that the future is not likely to belong to those…
I normally have my ultracrepidarian tendencies under control, but when it comes to the whole “Is AI conscious?” debate, I cannot resist to chime in with some half-baked ideas, misreadings of the neuroscience literature, and some confused thoughts. Buckle up, here we go! TL;DR: For assessing the dangers of AI, a discussion about its consciousness (or lack thereof) is not required and…
One of the most memorable events in my career so far was being selected as a host for the Fulbright Program . When Emily (Simons) approached me with her idea of applying for this type of scholarship, I was already blown away by her enthusiasm—but little did I imagine how immensely enriching her visit to the lab would turn out to be! We initially discussed a project aligned with our shared…
As much as I hate to admit it, I am slowly becoming a more senior member of the academic community. 1 Part of this involves providing some guidance and addressing things that are not talked about openly but that one should talk about openly. Here, then, is my answer to the unspoken question of ‘Given the predominance of large language models, is there value in focusing on other things and,…
As much as we sometimes tend to forget it, machine learning runs on data . 1 Despite this, we—that is, the researchers—often treat data like manna : Something is bestowed upon us from on high, typically in an ineffable fashion. Certainly, not something that we should question or that we should concern ourselves with! Unfortunately, this mentality has some unexpected side-effects, most…
One of the staples of academic life is that your work will be rejected. Thanks to modern peer review, the path to publishing your work in an ‘official’ venue—whatever that might mean for your chosen scientific field—is fraught with obstacles, the primary one being the reviewers. In machine learning, where fast-paced conferences are de rigueur , this is no different. While…
Writing about the interregnum following the First World War, Antonio Gramsci’s thoughts are often loosely paraphrased like this: The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters. It is my opinion that we, too, find ourselves in such a ’time of monsters.’ Our monster are manifold, some more subtle than others, comprising (i) the rise of…
Impostor syndrome is almost a staple of academia, probably because of the delayed gratification and lack of direct, actionable feedback that accompanies most research projects. In this post, I attempt to give some advice for overcoming this feeling or, at the very least, learning to live better with it. I shall try not to dish out the usual bromides of ‘Everyone feels that way…
When applying for academic positions, a common requirement is a letter of motivation . If you are not well-versed in academic matters and traditions (as I used to be), here is a little guide about things to do and things to avoid. Do : Be concise and highlight the most relevant facts about your CV. Since you typically attach different documents, your letter of motivation does not have to rehash…
While I still do not like KPIs, the last year was exhilarating in many ways, and I want to continue last year’s tradition . However, this time, in the spirit of radical transparency, I also want to discuss certain things that did not work out. But let us start with the good things first! In 2024, we … …published 12 conference or journal papers …published 2 workshop…
One of my more endearing characteristics—or so I like to believe—is my naïveté in the face of academic reality. It is probably amusing to those who know me personally to see how I just do not ‘grok’ certain things, making me either bewildered, angry, sad, or a linear combination thereof. One of the many, many, many things that fall into this category is the tendency of some…
As my research group starts to take root in Fribourg , I finally get to take the time to note some things I like about the region and the university. Much of this is inspired by Matt Might , whose article on getting tenure ends very poignantly: And come to the University of Utah! Life is good here. Without further ado, let me sing the praises of Fribourg and its environs: Fribourg is a literal…
One of the social conventions I still have trouble understanding is the tacit requirement to have opinions on everything , in particular complex socio-political conflicts. While I am not apolitical in the sense that I do have political opinions on some issues, I feel no need to know the relevant talking points or assume a position in every conflict. I also do not feel the urge to discuss or state…
Last year, with a baby on the way, my wife and I decided to move from our apartment into a house. We are now more or less our own landlords, which is nice, but at the same time, we also have to spend substantial amounts of time just maintaining everything. Grass is growing on our terrace; we have to remove it. The heating systems needs a check-up: I schedule an appointment. An outlet is not…
I had a marvellous time at a conference on topological data analysis in Oxford this week. Next to the amazing research discussions, I had the opportunity to talk to the next generation of students and understand what they are worrying about these days. After a couple of conversations, a pattern emerged: Many students were worried about being perceived as ‘unprofessional,’…
Back when I was still doing research in visualization, a field concerned with making complex data sets understandable, our field was haunted by the spectre of a ostensibly misunderstood tool: the Rainbow colour map. Assuming that most of my readers are unfamiliar with this, here is a brief and incomplete introduction to colour maps: The goal of a colour map is to assign colours to data, so that…
Recently, it occurred to me that I don’t understand AI alignment researchers. The goal of AI alignment is to teach AI our values, thus making AI systems ostensible safer and more reliable to use for everyone. Proponents of artificial generalised intelligence, also known as AGI, believe that alignment is critical to prevent an AI-based extinction event . Setting aside these fears for now, my…
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the forces driving my own research. There have been quite a few enlightening conversations with my group members and collaborators like Mathieu , which gave me the opportunity to come with something that encapsulates my philosophy quite well. Here we go! Broadly speaking, I care about developing methods. I always like to use the term toolsmith for myself,…
I sometimes get questions about my own setup. While I am glad to answer them, I want to make it clear that my setup is not supposed to be superior to others—it is merely what I find to work for me . Read it mostly to weigh and consider, not to believe and take for granted, please. That being said, here is a list of things I like to use: Hardware Laptop : My daily laptop is a ThinkPad X1…
Machine-learning scientists like catchy paper titles. Whether it is a confident Attention is All You Need , a rather philosophical Everything is Connected , or a Tolkienesque Tree! I am no Tree! I am a Low Dimensional Hyperbolic Embedding , there is always a lot of fun in conferences. One less fun aspect of this is a strong belief in a monoculture. There is only a single thread that is pursued.…
I make all of my content available to the public sphere, ensuring access to my research, my talks, and my posts. This is not out of a misguided sense of grandiosity, but merely because I believe that, as someone paid from public funds, the public should also have the option to interact with the things that I do. It is for this very reason that I license all the content I have control over under…
When colleagues learn about my background in mathematics and are aware of my current research agenda , they often say things like ‘I wish I could also do this, but my topic is just too abstract,’ or ‘Man, ML is so unwelcoming.’ I strongly believe that both of these statements are not correct. This post is meant to be an invitation to ML research and aims to provide a source…
A persistent pattern I observe in academia—in particular machine learning—is a largely unwarranted belief in Silver bullets , i.e. the existence of new methods that suddenly ‘solve’ a large variety of problems much more efficiently and effectively. These beliefs are manifest in paper titles, like the meme of ‘X Is All You Need.’ I have already seen the…
While the mythical 10x researcher shall remain, well, mythical, there are some tools for decreasing your personal productivity, turning you into a 0.1x researcher. One of these, for me, are WYSIWYG editors, in particular Word and Google Docs. Whenever I have to use one of them, my thinking turns into molasses, and my writing dries up like some rivers do in summer. Regardless of how often I try one…
One of my favourite pastimes involves making notes about some controversial topic and then revisiting them some months later. This is often a nice way to practice stoicism: many times, what looked like a big storm turns out to be nothing more than air disturbed by a mayfly. A recent topic that is worth reconsidering involves the misinformation brought on by large language models. Last year, some…
I am not a big believer of KPIs for academia because I am familiar with Goodhart’s law , which states that ‘when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.’ A collection of numbers always struck me as a very dry way to summarise things, neglecting completely the emotional roller coasters that are involved in their creation. Nevertheless, here is my attempt at…
At our local meetup for the ‘Learning on Graphs’ Conference , we also organised a brief panel discussion with the idea of engaging researchers at all levels. While every panellist had a different story to tell, there is nevertheless one common strategy that I extracted from their discussions: When in doubt, focus on quality over quantity. I can echo this sentiment. The few times in my…
After a successful local meetup for the ‘Learning on Graphs’ Conference , I found myself almost stranded away from home. It had already been snowing a little bit 1 over the previous evening, but upon waking up, I was greeted by a lot of notifications concerning cancelled trains, flights, and the like. A quick glance outside showed that more snow had fallen over night, resulting in a…
I was deeply saddened to learn about the untimely death of Frank H. Lutz . I was not closely acquainted with Frank as a person but his work had a big impact on me. In my undergraduate days, I discovered his resource The Manifold Page at a critical time in my studies when I was actively looking for ways to combine my love for algorithms with my love for geometry and topology. At the suggestion of…
With recent events in the Middle East escalating and spiralling further, I need to voice some thoughts that I held back for some time now. It all started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Back then, I had already seen my social media feeds light up in frantic activity. Having endured a lot of self-appointed virology experts during the pandemic, 1 I now had to endure armchair warfare experts…
I am well aware of the principle of Chesterton’s Fence , i.e. the principle that ’no reforms should be attempted until the justification of the status quo is understood.’ Over the years, this principle has served me well, in particular when it comes to software development and academic matters. However, I recently discovered that sometimes, the fence is invisible, so you ignore…
I always had maintained a strained relationship with ’the social network formerly known as Twitter,’ i.e. ‘X.’ On the one hand, I had a semi-curated newsfeed, on the other hand, I started seeing the allure of more and more posturing. When conference deadlines rolled around, I was not always looking forward to the many posts of the form ‘So grateful that my lab has…
My dearest Wormwood, It warms my heart to hear that you were able to obtain a post as a reviewer! Humans, in particular academics, care so much more about prestige than they want to admit. Well done! Allow me to provide you with some avuncular words of advice such that you may, in time, ensure that the Patient becomes ours. Let me start with how you should write your reviews. Make sure to be…
Large language models have taken the public and academia by surprise. Almost every day, someone finds a new thing they can—or cannot—do reliably. Setting aside all questions about ethics and other aspects, I want to briefly comment on the thing that irks me about such models in the general discourse, namely: LLMs are like junk food. Yes, their feats are great and it is kind of funny to…
As a reaction to the previous article on how to write a scientific paper, I got some reactions from friends and colleagues, the underlying message being that they would rather like to understand why writing can be important. There is indeed a tendency to see academic writing as a tedious task that one should try to get done as quickly as possible lest it causes unbearable pain, 1 or, even worse,…
When I started my Ph.D., I found writing papers to be a somewhat daunting task. With this guide, I want to offer a brief perspective on the most relevant aspects of writing. Structure The standard—one could almost say ‘canonical’—structure of a paper looks like this: Abstract Introduction Background Related Work Methods Experiments Discussion Let us look at all of these!…
My maternal grandfather passed away tonight. He had just turned 85. After the untimely deaths of my other grandparents, this means that my parents and their siblings are now the oldest generation. I want to remember my grandfather here and reflect on what he taught me. Growing up, my grandmother and grandfather were a focal point; they provided lots of support and watched my brother and me. They…
During my undergraduate and graduate studies, I often took on additional summer jobs in IT to enlarge my budget. While this got me exposed to some cool technologies and I always had great teams that made sure I knew that I could take some time to learn stuff on the job, I always felt slightly uneasy coming into work being paid to ‘just’ read. 1 I would rather ‘be…
The recent introduction of large language models has finally brought AI to the attention of the general public. New business models are being created, papers are being written, and the headlines are full of ChatGPT and their ilk. I saw the best minds of my generation raptly typing prompt over prompt while real life continued outside. The fights between pundits were pandæmonium, with some welcoming…