This event is organized by the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society.
Note: Event details may change. Please refer to the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society’s events page for the most current information.
Our weekly SRI Seminar Series welcomes Jeff Clune, a professor of computer science at the University of British Columbia, a Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute, and a senior research advisor at DeepMind. Clune’s research focuses on deep learning, including deep reinforcement learning.
In this talk, Jeff Clune will explore how foundation models are opening new frontiers to create open-ended algorithms capable of continuous innovation and lifelong learning. Drawing from cutting-edge recent work, Clune will demonstrate how foundation models can be harnessed to push the boundaries of creativity and autonomy.
Moderator: Sheila McIlraith, Department of Computer Science
Location: Online
Talk title:
“Open-ended and AI-generating algorithms in the era of foundation models”
Abstract:
Foundation models (e.g. large language models) create exciting new opportunities in our longstanding quests to produce open-ended and AI-generating algorithms, wherein agents can truly keep innovating and learning forever. In this talk, I will share some of our recent work harnessing the power of foundation models to make progress in these areas. I will cover our recent work including OMNI (Open-endedness via Models of human Notions of Interestingness), Video Pre-Training (VPT), Thought Cloning, Automatically Designing Agentic Systems (ADAS), the Darwin Gödel Machine, and The AI Scientist.
Suggested reading:
The AI Scientist: Towards fully automated open-ended scientific discovery, blog post, August 13, 2024. Also see arXiv pre-print.
The AI Scientist generates its first peer-reviewed scientific publication, blog post, March 12, 2025.
The Darwin Gödel Machine: AI that improves itself by rewriting its own code, blog post, May 30, 2025.
Shengran Hu, Cong Lu, Jeff Clune, “Automated design of agentic systems,” arXiv pre-print, August 15, 2024.
Jenny Zhang, Joel Lehman, Kenneth Stanley, Jeff Clune, “OMNI: Open-endedness via Models of human Notions of Interestingness,” arXiv pre-print, June 2, 2023.
About Jeff Clune
Jeff Clune is a professor of computer science at the University of British Columbia, a Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute, and a Senior Research Advisor at DeepMind. Clune's research focuses on deep learning, including deep reinforcement learning. Previously he was a research manager at OpenAI, a senior research manager and founding member of Uber AI Labs (formed after Uber acquired a startup he helped lead), the Harris Associate Professor in Computer Science at the University of Wyoming, and a research scientist at Cornell University. Clune has received degrees from Michigan State University (PhD, master’s) and the University of Michigan (bachelor’s).
Clune has won the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the White House, had two papers in Nature, one in Science, and one in PNAS, won an NSF CAREER award, received multiple Outstanding Paper of the Decade and Distinguished Young Investigator awards, a Test of Time award, and had best paper awards, oral presentations, and invited talks at the top machine learning conferences (NeurIPS, CVPR, ICLR, and ICML). His research is regularly covered in the world’s top press outlets, including the New York Times, NPR, the New Yorker, CNN, NBC, Wired, the BBC, the Economist, Science, Nature, National Geographic, the Atlantic, and the New Scientist. More on Jeff’s research can be found on his website or on X/Twitter (@jeffclune).
About the SRI Seminar Series
The SRI Seminar Series brings together the Schwartz Reisman community and beyond for a robust exchange of ideas that advance scholarship at the intersection of technology and society. Seminars are led by a leading or emerging scholar and feature extensive discussion.
Each week, a featured speaker will present for 45 minutes, followed by an open discussion. Registered attendees will be emailed a Zoom link before the event begins. The event will be recorded and posted online.