Blake Richards

The olfactory cortex doesn't store smells. It reshapes the space they live in. We wrote a fun review on representational manifolds in PCx with Rainer Friedrich doi.org/10.1016/j.co...

I'm happy to share my first contribution to The Transmitter. From its inception, AI has borrowed ideas and concepts from the brain's operations and mechanisms. The two field have a lot to gain from each other and we should work to make the bridge wider and stronger.

World models are central to intelligence - but how do we actually use them to behave flexibly? We review emerging findings on how the PFC’s inner dynamics translate structured knowledge into action. osf.io/preprints/ps... 🧵 1/15

Super excited about this work, led by @haoliu4391.bsky.social and @s-michelmann.bsky.social. Also grateful for the many insightful conversations in which Sebastian gradually convinced me that memory encoding requires retrieval—leveraging existing semantic knowledge to regenerate the experience.

1/ Our brains probably don’t store a new copy of “red” when we encounter something red. Yet we can reinstate distinct memories of red objects. How do we reuse what we already know when encoding memories? Excited to share new work led by @haoliu4391.bsky.social, with @marcelomattar.bsky.social 🧠🧵

Countries like Canada are either going to need to develop large-scale public drug development capacity or watch our system be crushed by the increasing costs of advanced therapies. www.cbc.ca/news/health/...

For those who can’t join us in person tonight, the talk will be livestreamed on @longnow.org's YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPx_...

One reason I'm so worried and often pessimistic about the recovery of US science after Trump is dead is that restoring institutional credibility that was destroyed by govt action is one thing (and not guaranteed to succeed)...but the credibility that was willingly surrendered is gone forever.

This month’s book picks 🧵 Featuring: – @mavelous-mav.bsky.social and @mbernst.bsky.social – @nataliefoster.bsky.social – Kevin Peter Hand

Super proud of many things about this work by the amazing @kristorpjensen.bsky.social. The work is one of my favourite things ever from the lab. Also super proud of Kris for choosing to send it to @elife.bsky.social - we get to see Kris explain every figure! elifesciences.org/articles/109...

Three reasons why AI is not conscious and perhaps never will be www.nature.com/articles/d41... - I have to say I find these arguments (by @anilseth.bsky.social, @neddo.bsky.social and G. Tononi) unconvincing... 🧵

Using AI to write the proposal for a grant: heinous, what are you doing, writing is thinking Using AI to populate a weird excel sheet of project timelines in some pseudo-serious format mandated by the grant agency: i love you, liberation technology

Being anti-AI coding in games makes zero sense. With AI you can quickly make amazing, customized tools and engine code for your team that were cost prohibitive to make before, and these tools empower real artists, designers and programmers to make better games.

My main concern here is that what counts as “intelligence” is radically broad, covering “…doing, or performing functions” Any capacity measurable by cog sci is thereby written off, however closely it instantiates properties associated with human consciousness AI consciousness is ruled out by fiat

Making myself angry for no reason at all remembering the American transit planner that went to Amsterdam and was appalled at how little stakeholder engagement they did in favor of actually building shit.

Konrad’s framing of quietism in neuro is the exact therapy for what I described in this thread: bsky.app/profile/shah...

I had a feeling recently that seems to be corroborated by chats with colleagues, so I decided to share it here. A lot of systems neuroscientists driven by algorithmic-level questions are going through what looks and feels like a research depression. 🧵 (1/n) 🧠📈 #NeuroAI

Friends in San Francisco: Join me at @longnow.org on October 22 for a conversation on interdependence with @baratunde.com. We'll explore cooperation as the core governing principle of nature and synthetic minds, why intelligence is inherently collective, and what this means for our shared future.

I’m very happy to share that I’ve started a new chapter as a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at Columbia University, based at the @zuckermanbrain.bsky.social in New York City.

And a very apropos piece from @olveczky.bsky.social related to this thread as well! bsky.app/profile/olve...

My journey from the eminently decipherable retina to the entangled mess that is the mammalian motor system. No turning back now. !https://www.thetransmitter.org/methods/what-to-do-when-traditional-mechanistic-approaches-no-longer-work/

Why We Systems Neuroscientists Should (Usually) Be Quietists: The Philosophical Logic of NeuroAI -- response to David Barack kording.substack.com/p/why-we-sys...

(1/2) I’m starting a NeuroAI and comp neuro lab at the University of Toronto! How do brains and AI learn from ongoing experience? How do they connect delayed outcomes to past actions, adapt to change, and retain what matters? Recruiting funded PhD students for Fall 2027. Links in the reply 👇

Reminder - the open access deal on this BBS collection is only for one more week (until 23/10/26) - don't miss your chance to get hold of the full pdf 👇🏽

Mila’s annual supervision request process is open for MSc and PhD applications for Fall 2027 admission. While I won’t be taking on new students for supervision this cycle, I encourage you to apply to join Mila’s brilliant deep learning research community.

Mila's annual supervision request process is now open to receive MSc and PhD applications for Fall 2027 admission! For more information, visit https://mila.quebec/en/prospective-students-and-postdocs/research-programs/request-supervisor

Such a great question and nice to see a positive answer

Our paper is out in Nature, congrats to Qiyu, An et al! By stimulating ~20 motor cortex neurons carefully selected based on their activity, we could induce learned population activity and, sometimes, the movement itself, depending on the brain's state. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Almost four years ago, An and I were just starting to prepare this manuscript when tragedy struck. Since then, Qiyu and the team have worked extremely hard to bring this study to light. I could not be more proud of them.

Over 400 researchers and I have signed this open letter calling for the AI and security communities to come together to improve alignment and containment approaches in order to protect our critical infrastructure and digital systems. ai-security-letter.org

Our paper on exponentiated gradient (EG) learning is now out at Neuron! www.cell.com/neuron/fullt... We show that EG naturally respects Dale's law and produces networks that are a better phenomenlogical fit to biological networks. Congrats to @repromancer.bsky.social for getting this out! 🧠📈 🧪