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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing

@simonsinstitute.bsky.social
1.8K followers 820 following 360 posts

The world's leading venue for collaborative research in theoretical computer science. Follow us at YouTube.com/SimonsInstitute.

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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 7h
Earlier this month, we hosted a working group to think about how the TCS community should respond to AI progress. Their report, released on Monday, highlights 12 near-term actions that received broad support among the participants. simons.berkeley.edu/news-publica...
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Reposted by Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing
Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 29/09/2026
"Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man." (remotely attending the Simons Institute's Karp Distinguished Lecture by @booleananalysis.bsky.social) @simonsinstitute.bsky.social
Ryan O'Donnell's (almost) favorite expander graph
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 21h
Earlier this month, we hosted a working group to think about how the TCS community should respond to AI progress. Their report, released yesterday, highlights 12 near-term actions that received broad support among the participants. simons.berkeley.edu/news-publica...
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
1/4 Are diffusion language models ready for the real world? Not quite. Today's diffusion language models are missing some key ingredients, said Volodymyr Kuleshov of @cornelluniversity.bsky.social, at the Simons Institute workshop on Diffusion Generative Modeling: Progress and Next Steps
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Reposted by Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing
Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 22/09/2026
Quite the exciting talk by Ryan O'Donnell (@booleananalysis.bsky.social) at the Simons Institute next week, on Expander Graphs. We'll finally know which ones are his favorites! Livestream option available upon (free) registration: simons.berkeley.edu/events/my-fa... @simonsinstitute.bsky.social
simons.berkeley.edu
My Favorite Expanders | Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture
Expander graphs are sparse graphs for which, whenever you split the graph into two parts, the number of edges going between the parts is proportional to the size of the smaller part. There are extreme...
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Join us Tuesday, 9/29 for the first Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture of this academic year, featuring @booleananalysis.bsky.social. simons.berkeley.edu/events/my-fa...
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
We invite your project proposals for Circles, the Simons Institute – Jane Street Small Group Collaborations, which supports groups of 3-6 researchers for 4 weeklong gatherings over 2 years. Apply by Oct. 15 (deadline extended). simons.berkeley.edu/participate/...
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
1/5 The case for diffusion language models: "A lot of the [early] gains in language modeling performance have come from scaling pre-training...[the training algorithm] was designed to be very parallelizable across GPUs": Volodymyr Kuleshov of @cornelluniversity.bsky.social at the Simons Institute
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
1/5 Imagine taking an fMRI scan of the brain of a person viewing an image, and reconstructing what the person saw from the fMRI alone. That's Brain-IT. "This is state-of-the-art image decoding from fMRI," said Michal Irani (@weizmann.ac.il), at the Simons Institute.
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
1/3 From task-specific neural data to foundation models. In neuroscience, studying the neural activity of some behavior in an animal only gives us "a snapshot of the full activity that might be present across the brain," said Eva Dyer of @upenn.edu at the Simons Institute.
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
The Dark Matter of Neuroscience. For ages, "neuroscience didn't have much to say about two people...in a dynamical interaction," said Guillaume Dumas, @introspection.bsky.social, of @mila-quebec.bsky.social at the Simons Institute workshop on Topics in Intelligence: World Models and Social Reasoning
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
The African philosophy Ubuntu — "I am because you are" — inspires Guillaume Dumas (@introspection.bsky.social) of @mila-quebec.bsky.social, in his research on social cognition and interaction. Dumas spoke at the Simons Institute workshop on Topics in Intelligence: World Models and Social Reasoning
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
1/3 For AIs to be socially intelligent, they'll have to learn internal "social world models" of people & social interactions, not just physical world models, said Paul Liang of @mit.edu at the Simons Institute workshop on Topics in Intelligence: World Models and Social Reasoning
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
The schedule of talks for our Aug. 24–28 ICM Satellite Conference on Spectral Theory, High-Dimensional Expansion, and Pseudorandomness is now online: simons.berkeley.edu/workshops/ic...
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
1/4 "AI is not when computer can write poetry. AI is when computer will *want* to write poetry." @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social's Alyosha Efros quoted a friend, when talking about the nature of "True AI," at the Simons Institute workshop on Topics in Intelligence: World Models and Social Reasoning
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
1/3 AI and Its Discontents: @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social's Jitendra Malik talked of the "rumblings of dissent,", when it comes to the current approach of scaling up frontier multimodal models, at the Simons Institute workshop on Topics in Intelligence: World Models and Social Reasoning
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
This week at the Simons Institute, a workshop on Diffusion Generative Modeling: Progress and Next Steps simons.berkeley.edu/workshops/di...
simons.berkeley.edu
Diffusion Generative Modeling: Progress and Next Steps
Diffusion models are now the de facto approach to generative modeling across a wide range of data modalities including images, audio, videos, and visuomotor policies. In recent years, there has been a...
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Simons Institute Director Venkat Guruswami has been honored this summer with STOC and CCC 2026 Test of Time Awards for papers that transformed coding theory and pseudorandomness, and emerged from a common algebraic core. simons.berkeley.edu/news/guruswa...
simons.berkeley.edu
Guruswami Receives Test of Time Awards at STOC and CCC 2026
We’re delighted to share that Simons Institute Director Venkatesan Guruswami has been honored this summer with two 2026 Test of Time Awards for papers that transformed coding theory and pseudorandomne...
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
In robotics, "there are problems to be solved which are to do with shortage of data and only when we solve them will we solve robotics," said @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social's Jitendra Malik at the Simons Institute's workshop on Topics in Intelligence: World Models and Social Reasoning.
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Congratulations to all the #ICM2026 Fields Medal and Abacus Medal recipients! And special kudos to theoretical computer scientist Shayan Oveis Gharan, who received the Abacus Medal, and has been a program organizer and frequent long-term visitor at the Institute over the years.
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Nikhil Srivastava is now the Simons Institute’s Interim Associate Director! He succeeds Sampath Kannan, who returns to UPenn this fall. Taking Nikhil’s place as Senior Scientist is Berkeley Statistics and EECS faculty member @jasondeanlee.bsky.social. simons.berkeley.edu/news/faculty...
simons.berkeley.edu
Faculty Leadership Team Update
As of July 1, our friend and colleague Nikhil Srivastava is the Simons Institute’s Interim Associate Director. He succeeds Sampath Kannan, who returns to UPenn this fall, after two highly successful y...
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Thursday and Friday this week: a workshop on Quantum Circuits and Algorithms for Cryptography simons.berkeley.edu/workshops/qu...
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
ICM 2026 Satellite Conference: Spectral Theory, High-Dimensional Expansion, and Pseudorandomness August 24–28 at the Simons Institute Join us! simons.berkeley.edu/workshops/ic...
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Join us! simons.berkeley.edu/events/encry...
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
From our friends at Berkeley's Center for Responsible, Decentralized Intelligence: Agentic AI Summit, August 1–2 Early bird pricing ends July 5 rdi.berkeley.edu/events/agent...
rdi.berkeley.edu
Agentic AI Summit 2026
Join us August 1–2, 2026 on the UC Berkeley campus for the largest summit dedicated to Agentic AI — 5,000+ attendees, world-class speakers, and a global livestream.
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
In case you didn't see this when it came out a couple weeks ago, here's a nice article from Harvard's FAS Current about the second batch of #1stproof, a community experiment that tests AI's capacity to do research math. current.fas.harvard.edu/stories/firs...
current.fas.harvard.edu
First Proof’s second batch of math problems test AI
Some answers were correct and solved at a high level, in a similar way to a published paper. Some were correct but were so strange or clunky they took hours for a mathematician to decipher. Some were ...
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
1/2 If data about the natural world lives in a low-dimensional hyperbolic space, then a large number of measurements embedded in a high-dimensional Euclidean space can preserve info. about the “curved inner world," said Tatyanna Sharpee, @salkinstitute.bsky.social, at the Simons Institute
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
1/3 "All data in the natural world and in neural systems have hyperbolic geometry in them," said Tatyanna Sharpee of @salkinstitute.bsky.social, at the Simons Institute workshop on Topics in Intelligence: World Models and Social Reasoning.
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
1/3 Musicians, human or avian, don't seem to care about their own mistakes when performing. But do they care how the audience — for the male zebra finch, the audience is the female of the species — responds to their singing? asked @vikramgadagkar.bsky.social at the Simons Institute.
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
1/5 What do zebra finches and musicians have in common? Both evaluate their performances differently in practice than while performing, said @vikramgadagkar.bsky.social of @columbiauniversity.bsky.social at the Simons Institute workshop on Topics in Intelligence: World Models and Social Reasoning
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
Congratulations to Simons Institute Director Venkat Guruswami, whose 2006 paper with Atri Rudra, “Explicit capacity-achieving list-decodable codes,” received a STOC 2026 Test of Time Award this week. Kudos to the other awardees as well! Full list here: sigact.org/prizes/stoc_...
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
1/2 "Many view the hard problem as needing a new kind of science to explain subjective experience. We view the hard problem as a challenge to show that subjective consciousness surely is computational," said @lenoreblum.bsky.social at the Simons Institute.
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
1/3 Besides "robotic, embodied systems, AI systems never see the real world. They only see these artifacts humans create & feed into them...From these [snapshots of reality] our AI needs to infer the world that produced these snapshots": @shiryginosar.bsky.social at the Simons Institute
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
1/5 Do colonies of weaver ants—which build nests using leaves and larval silk—have a collective will and what does this have to do with the intent of individual ants? Ofer Feinerman, @weizmanninstitute.bsky.social, asked these questions at the Simons Institute.
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
1/3 Rich Sutton's Bitter Lesson might not be the right lesson, said @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social's Alyosha Efros at the Simons Institute. Sutton wrote, "The actual contents of minds are...irredeemably complex; we should stop trying to find simple ways to think about the contents of minds."
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
1/3 Is the prefrontal cortex (PFC) relatively large in humans? No, said biologist Robert Barton of @durham.ac.uk, at the Simons Institute. They found "no evidence that the human frontal regions, including PFC, are disproportionately expanded relative to the rest of the brain".
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
1/2 "I see brains like exotic fruits growing on the tree of life. My work [tries] to understand how and why we see this diversity," said evolutionary biologist Robert Barton, @durham.ac.uk, at the Simons Institute workshop on Topics in Intelligence: World Models and Social Reasoning
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
1/4 The human caregiving model could help solve the alignment problem—"how do you get the goals of the AI aligned with your goals", said @alisongopnik.bsky.social at the Simons Institute workshop on Topics in Intelligence: World Models and Social Reasoning. Video: simons.berkeley.edu/talks/alison...
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
“If we had consciousness in AI, it’d be God,” said Ken Nakayama, @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social/ @harvard.edu) somewhat in jest, comparing biological and AI consciousness, at the Simons Institute w/shop on Topics in Intelligence: World Models and Social Reasoning simons.berkeley.edu/talks/ken-na...
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
1/2 The Return of RNNs. "AI is still lacking a good memory mechanism...We are in this era of 'attention is all you need' but I don't think that's going to cut it," said @phillipisola.bsky.social of @mit.edu at the Simons Institute workshop on Topics in Intelligence: World Models and Social Reasoning
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
1/2 Generative world model (GWM) theories are correlated with theories that aren't world model theories, such as the Bayesian brain theory, said @gallantlab.org at the Simons Institute workshop on Topics in Intelligence: World Models and Social Reasoning. simons.berkeley.edu/talks/jack-g...
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
1/4 World models are all the rage in both neuroscience and AI. But does the brain really build world models? Jack Gallant (@ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social) asked at the Simons Institute workshop on Topics in Intelligence: World Models and Social Reasoning. Video: simons.berkeley.edu/talks/jack-g...
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
1/3 "Our conclusion is that AI consciousness is inevitable." In back-to-back talks, Manuel Blum and @lenoreblum.bsky.social of @cmu.edu discuss the Conscious Turing Machine and AI consciousness at the Simons Institute workshop on The Role of TCS in Modern Machine Learning
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
1/2 Are LLMs doomed to hallucinate? No, says OpenAI's Adam Kalai at the Simons Institute workshop on The Role of TCS in Modern Machine Learning. "I don’t think it’s an inevitable problem. We can drastically reduce the amount of hallucinations." Video: simons.berkeley.edu/talks/adam-k....
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
1/2"Machine Learning is starting to look very different from what it looked like before": Tom Mitchell of @cmu.edu at the Simons Institute workshop on The Role of TCS in Modern Machine Learning. Video: simons.berkeley.edu/talks/tom-mi...
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
1/2 We've heard of the curse of dimensionality. But what about the curse of multilinguality? "If you try to pack more languages into the same size model, they are each going to degrade," said @shaynelongpre.bsky.social of @mit.edu at the Simons Institute.
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
1/5 Empirical conclusions depend on data and on human decisions made during the research process. @zstevenwu.bsky.social (@cmu.edu) spoke at the Simons Institute of using agents with unique personas to induce diversity in AI decision making, the baseline being the "Standard Persona."
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
1/4 Remember Sydney, the chatbot that urged a @nytimes.com columnist to break up with his wife? Or how an LLM fine-tuned to output insecure code became misaligned on tasks unrelated to coding? What do these have in common? — Roger Grosse of @anthropic.com and U of Toronto at the Simons Institute.
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Inioluwa Deborah Raji kicks off the workshop on Governance at the Technological Frontier: Translating Research into Policy for AI Oversight. simons.berkeley.edu/workshops/go... #SimonsLive
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Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing @simonsinstitute.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Join us! simons.berkeley.edu/workshops/go...
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