Patrick van der Smagt
@smagt.bsky.social
scientist in machine learning and robotics / serious-music lover / language pedant / ethical AI champion
Life?
First you get taller.
Then you get stabler.
Then you get wiser.
Then you get older.
Then you get dryer.
First you get taller.
Then you get stabler.
Then you get wiser.
Then you get older.
Then you get dryer.
May 12, 2025 at 8:06 PM
Life?
First you get taller.
Then you get stabler.
Then you get wiser.
Then you get older.
Then you get dryer.
First you get taller.
Then you get stabler.
Then you get wiser.
Then you get older.
Then you get dryer.
Can you unmake a Swiss roll?
VAEs compact but destroy data shape. Solution: add a distance-preserving loss based on a continuous kNN graph. Using VAEs with learned priors, our models have topologically consistent latent spaces.
Paper: Nutan Chen & Botond Cseke, ICONIP 2024 arxiv.org/abs/2206.05909
VAEs compact but destroy data shape. Solution: add a distance-preserving loss based on a continuous kNN graph. Using VAEs with learned priors, our models have topologically consistent latent spaces.
Paper: Nutan Chen & Botond Cseke, ICONIP 2024 arxiv.org/abs/2206.05909
December 13, 2024 at 1:42 PM
Can you unmake a Swiss roll?
VAEs compact but destroy data shape. Solution: add a distance-preserving loss based on a continuous kNN graph. Using VAEs with learned priors, our models have topologically consistent latent spaces.
Paper: Nutan Chen & Botond Cseke, ICONIP 2024 arxiv.org/abs/2206.05909
VAEs compact but destroy data shape. Solution: add a distance-preserving loss based on a continuous kNN graph. Using VAEs with learned priors, our models have topologically consistent latent spaces.
Paper: Nutan Chen & Botond Cseke, ICONIP 2024 arxiv.org/abs/2206.05909
What I really hate: someone LLM's up a text, then gives it to me for review.
December 11, 2024 at 8:57 AM
What I really hate: someone LLM's up a text, then gives it to me for review.
#NeurIPS: Offline RL causes distribution shift + value overestimation. Our Constrained Latent Action Policies (C-LAP)
🔹 generative modelling of observations and actions mimics online learning
🔹 constrained latent actions let policy stay in data distribution
arxiv.org/abs/2411.04562
Dec 11 4:30pm PST
🔹 generative modelling of observations and actions mimics online learning
🔹 constrained latent actions let policy stay in data distribution
arxiv.org/abs/2411.04562
Dec 11 4:30pm PST
December 9, 2024 at 11:08 AM
#NeurIPS: Offline RL causes distribution shift + value overestimation. Our Constrained Latent Action Policies (C-LAP)
🔹 generative modelling of observations and actions mimics online learning
🔹 constrained latent actions let policy stay in data distribution
arxiv.org/abs/2411.04562
Dec 11 4:30pm PST
🔹 generative modelling of observations and actions mimics online learning
🔹 constrained latent actions let policy stay in data distribution
arxiv.org/abs/2411.04562
Dec 11 4:30pm PST
My citation counts are going down: I have no foundation model papers! And no patience with such trial-and-error poking. Latent-variable models, reinforcement learning, control on solid generative machine-learning models seem not cool enough ... for now.
December 6, 2024 at 9:45 PM
My citation counts are going down: I have no foundation model papers! And no patience with such trial-and-error poking. Latent-variable models, reinforcement learning, control on solid generative machine-learning models seem not cool enough ... for now.
Black day. I just finished the last of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History.
Now what!
Now what!
November 30, 2024 at 11:34 AM
Black day. I just finished the last of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History.
Now what!
Now what!
The last in the trilogy on the Trojan wars by Pat Barker, seen by the women -- in this case, Ritsa serving Cassandra (serving Agamemnon). A third must-read, as I try to argue in smagt.github.io/Pat%20Barker....
The Voyage Home
The exhilarating follow-up to Pat Barker’s The Women of Troy and The Silence of the Girls After ten blood-filled years, the war is over. Troy lies in smoking ruins as the victorious Greeks fill their ...
smagt.github.io
August 31, 2024 at 3:42 PM
The last in the trilogy on the Trojan wars by Pat Barker, seen by the women -- in this case, Ritsa serving Cassandra (serving Agamemnon). A third must-read, as I try to argue in smagt.github.io/Pat%20Barker....
Beautiful new book by Taffy Brodesser-Akner: Long Island Compromised. Finished it yesterdays after only a few days of engrossed reading. My notes at smagt.github.io/Taffy%20Brod...
Long Island Compromise
‘Everything I was dreaming it would be - shocking, tender, profound and delicious’ EMILY MAITLIS ‘Both enjoyable and funny while also substantive and profound’ CATHY RENTZENBRINK From the Sunday Times...
smagt.github.io
August 17, 2024 at 12:35 PM
Beautiful new book by Taffy Brodesser-Akner: Long Island Compromised. Finished it yesterdays after only a few days of engrossed reading. My notes at smagt.github.io/Taffy%20Brod...
I read 'Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman' as undergrad. I found it entertaining but pretentious. I re-read it last week. Now I could relate to many of the stories better, even if I don't play bongo or have my artworks in galleries. It was still pretentious. My notes @ smagt.github.io/Richard%20Fe...
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!
The Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist talks about his adventure-filled life in a series of transcribed taped discussions.
smagt.github.io
July 9, 2024 at 3:22 PM
I read 'Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman' as undergrad. I found it entertaining but pretentious. I re-read it last week. Now I could relate to many of the stories better, even if I don't play bongo or have my artworks in galleries. It was still pretentious. My notes @ smagt.github.io/Richard%20Fe...
Just finished reading the beautiful, newly translated _A Woman Of Pleasure_ by Kiyoko Murata -- a story about prostitution in 1900s Japan. My reading notes at smagt.github.io/Kiyoko%20Mur....
A Woman of Pleasure
An unforgettable novel of fearless women banding together to pursue the lives they want, inspired by the real-life historic Japanese courtesan strike In 1903, a fifteen-year-old girl named Aoi Ichi is...
smagt.github.io
July 8, 2024 at 7:40 PM
Just finished reading the beautiful, newly translated _A Woman Of Pleasure_ by Kiyoko Murata -- a story about prostitution in 1900s Japan. My reading notes at smagt.github.io/Kiyoko%20Mur....