Automating AI Research

You are cordially invited to attend the PhD Dissertation Defence of Louis Michel Kirsch on Tuesday 3 June 2025 at 18:00 in room D1.14.

Abstract:
A core element of artificial general intelligence (AGI) is the ability of AI to improve itself, including its own learning algorithm. This single capability, once developed by human researchers, could initiate an autonomously self-improving system capable of independently conducting all subsequent research. Toward this vision, this thesis advances the automation of AI research by developing methods for AI systems to discover general-purpose learning algorithms. While recent meta-learning approaches—such as in-context learning, fast-weights, and optimization-based methods—have enabled rapid adaptation to similar tasks from limited examples, they still rely significantly on human-engineered algorithms and fail to fully automate the discovery of new learning techniques. To address these limitations, we introduce meta-learners designed to automatically discover reusable learning algorithms suitable across diverse tasks, mirroring human-engineered solutions. We present several novel methods addressing meta-generalization, including learned loss functions, weight-shared LSTMs that implement gradient descent in their recurrent dynamics, and black-box Transformers that learn how to in-context learn generally. Finally, we seek AI to self-improve while minimizing its dependence on human engineering. To this end, we explore self-referential systems that can recursively improve themselves without hard-wired meta-optimization. We extend this idea to AI scientists, large language models that can automate AI research by generating hypotheses, conducting experiments, and interpreting results. Time: 19:30 local time

Dissertation Committee:
- Prof. Jürgen Schmidhuber, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland (Research Advisor)
- Prof. Cesare Alippi, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland (Internal Member)
- Prof. Natasha Sharygina, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland (Internal Member)
- Prof. Jeff Clune, University of British Columbia, Canada (External Member)
- Prof. Frank Hutter, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany (External Member)
- Prof. David Silver, University College London, UK (External Member)