Todd M. Gureckis | Lightnews

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · 13d

super awesome, including the presentation of the project!

Do AI agents ask good questions? We built “Collaborative Battleship” to find out—and discovered that weaker LMs + Bayesian inference can beat GPT-5 at 1% of the cost.

Paper, code & demos: gabegrand.github.io/battleship

Here's what we learned about building rational information-seeking agents... 🧵🔽

Gabe Grand @gabegrand.bsky.social · 14d

Do AI agents ask good questions? We built “Collaborative Battleship” to find out—and discovered that weaker LMs + Bayesian inference can beat GPT-5 at 1% of the cost.

Paper, code & demos: gabegrand.github.io/battleship

Here's what we learned about building rational information-seeking agents... 🧵🔽

Grace Lindsay @neurograce.bsky.social · 21d

Are you looking to do independent research related to machine learning and/or data science? Want to get some teaching experience too? Apply to be a faculty fellow at the Center for Data Science at New York University! Positions are for two years. apply.interfolio.com/174686

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

apply.interfolio.com

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · 25d

exciting collaboration on what people people forget when recalling stories! cool results and a great example of how big data + ai can help address difficult to study psychological questions in more naturalistic ways.

Omri Raccah @omriraccah.bsky.social · 25d

thrilled to share our preprint on false memories in naturalistic recollection!

Distinct paths to false memory revealed in hundreds of narrative recalls

paper: doi.org/10.31234/osf...

w/ phoebehc.bsky.social (co-first) Vy A. Vo @davidpoeppel.bsky.social @toddgureckis.bsky.social

thread below 👇

Omri Raccah @omriraccah.bsky.social · 25d

thrilled to share our preprint on false memories in naturalistic recollection!

Distinct paths to false memory revealed in hundreds of narrative recalls

paper: doi.org/10.31234/osf...

w/ phoebehc.bsky.social (co-first) Vy A. Vo @davidpoeppel.bsky.social @toddgureckis.bsky.social

thread below 👇

Mark Ho @markkho.bsky.social · Oct 6

I'm recruiting grad students!! 🎓

The CoDec Lab @ NYU (codec-lab.github.io) is looking for PhD students (Fall 2026) interested in computational approaches to social cognition & problem solving 🧠

Applications through Psych (tinyurl.com/nyucp) are due Dec 1. Reach out with Qs & please repost! 🙏

codec lab

codec-lab.github.io

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Oct 3

one of the reason older academics become less productive is that they eventually have worked with so many people, it takes up all their time just updating their website about what all the former lab people are currently doing.

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Sep 29

nice, thanks so much!

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Sep 27

lab, do you have a template or screenshot of your spreadsheet you’d share?

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Sep 27

anyone have a good technique for tracking project progress (app? whiteboard? a piece of paper?). i know someone that list all lab projects on a white board and have magnets that track through status like “coding” “in review” “in revision” etc…i’m wondering if someone dialed in a process for that

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Sep 26

* my lab's new interest intake form was inspired by @brendenlake.bsky.social's process (lake-lab.github.io/apply/) which has served him well, and i welcome people to copy these questions --- it'd be fine if applicants adopt broadly similar text across labs! intake.gureckislab.org/interest/

lake-lab.github.io

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Sep 26

yes, and i had the same thought, but many people on visa are "trapped" in the US due to the risk of leaving in the middle of of a phd, etc... so US conference are the only places where they present. there's no single option that seems ideal.

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Sep 26

I think people are still trying to understand exactly what in-context learning in LLMs means for cognition because it's completely different than how most people imagined things working in cog sci (much more explicit and structural, but limited, approaches to analogy).

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Sep 26

So far, learning traps seem robust to social learning in our cases. Surprisingly, despite many manipulations that have tried to reduce this learning trap, the most effective has been simply being a child (see @emilyliquin.bsky.social's work on traps in children) osf.io/preprints/ps...

OSF

osf.io

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Sep 26

This pattern was surprising given the popularity of the "social shaping" story of social influence whereby other people's choices act as a implicit reward signal for individual learning. Our results imply a more social-cognitive learning strategy based on inferring a partner's decision policy.

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Sep 26

The basic punchline is that people have difficulty learning from other people (inferring another person's decision rule), and the trap remains robust! One exception if we essentially spoon-feed you what your partner is doing.

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Sep 26

In a tour-de-force Rheza conducted five social learning experiments looking at how learning and deciding in the context of other people influences the tendency to fall into these traps.

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Sep 26

We wondered though -- in real life we are surrounded by other people 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 with different tendencies to explore and different beliefs. How robust are these learning traps observed in individuals to social learning? e.g., if you see someone else explore it might encourage u to explore reducing traps.

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Sep 26

Several years ago Alex Rich and I developed this task called the "attentional learning trap" wherein learners in a reinforcement learning task get robustly "trapped" in a suboptimal belief due to self-reinforcing patterns of avoidance. This pattern is rock solid 🪨 and has been replicated many times.

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Sep 26

🚨 New preprint: "Decision rule inference limits social escape from learning traps" (with Rheza Budiono and Cate Hartley of the @hartleylabnyu.bsky.social ✨). Read here: osf.io/preprints/ps.... This is more work on a very curious phenomena!

OSF

osf.io

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Sep 26

the second best thing to having solved an important problem is to at least be working on an important problem.

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Sep 26

weird - i studied categorization, concepts, analogy, similarity, & reasoning while being told it was a "dead area," people called my advisors "dinosaurs." in 2025 i'm listening to podcasts where like the gov. and tech giants are talking about how analogy is basically the key to the global economy. 🤷

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Sep 17

... and belated congratulations to @guydav.bsky.social on an awesome dissertation!! Tour de force.

Guy Davidson @guydav.bsky.social · Sep 17

Belated update #1: I defended my PhD about a month ago! I appreciate the warm reception from everyone who made it in-person and virtually. Thanks to my committee, @lerrelpinto.com, @togelius.bsky.social, and @markkho.bsky.social for your feedback and fun questions.

Guy Davidson @guydav.bsky.social · Sep 17

Belated update #1: I defended my PhD about a month ago! I appreciate the warm reception from everyone who made it in-person and virtually. Thanks to my committee, @lerrelpinto.com, @togelius.bsky.social, and @markkho.bsky.social for your feedback and fun questions.

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Sep 15

osf.io?

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Sep 3

me too!

Mark Ho @markkho.bsky.social · Sep 3

The TiCS issue featuring our paper on "A timeline of cognitive costs in decision-making" is now available online 😄

Honored to have been a part of this awesome interdisciplinary mega-collab led by Christin Schulze (UNSW Sydney)

www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

A timeline of cognitive costs in decision-making

Recent research from economics, psychology, cognitive science, computer science, and marketing is increasingly interested in the idea that people face cognitive costs when making decisions. Reviewing ...

www.cell.com

Mark Ho @markkho.bsky.social · Sep 3

The TiCS issue featuring our paper on "A timeline of cognitive costs in decision-making" is now available online 😄

Honored to have been a part of this awesome interdisciplinary mega-collab led by Christin Schulze (UNSW Sydney)

www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

A timeline of cognitive costs in decision-making

Recent research from economics, psychology, cognitive science, computer science, and marketing is increasingly interested in the idea that people face cognitive costs when making decisions. Reviewing ...

www.cell.com

todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Sep 2

just in time for teaching, release 0.4.0 of slidev-theme-neversink, adds custom classes to stickynote and admonitions, a few bug fixes, updated to work with latest slidev 52.1.0 github.com/gureckis/sli...

Releases · gureckis/slidev-theme-neversink

Slidev Theme Neversink. Contribute to gureckis/slidev-theme-neversink development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Grace Lindsay @neurograce.bsky.social · Aug 24

ATTN🚨: I will be looking for PhD students through NYU's Center for Data Science PhD program this year. Applicants should have an interest in either NeuroAI (specifically biological attention or AI interpretability) or ML for Remote Sensing. Visit my lab website for more info: lindsay-lab.github.io

PhD in Data Science: Admissions Requirements | NYU CDS

Discover the PhD in Data Science requirements at NYU. Learn about deadlines, required degrees, coursework, and application details for Fall 2025 admissions.

cds.nyu.edu

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