CERC-AAI Lab
Canada Excellence Research Chair in Autonomous AI
AI Foundation Models R&D
Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Autonomous Artificial Intelligence Lab at the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research of the University of Montreal (UdeM) is led by Irina Rish, a full professor at UdeM and Mila - Quebec AI Institute. A grant of ten million dollars over seven years (2020-2027) was awarded by Canadian government to support the CERC research program. This grant is a part of the comprehensive strategy to encourage development and deployment of artificial intelligence in Canada.
The high-level objective of this CERC in Autonomous AI program is to develop a set of sustained initiatives that will advance AI towards more general, human-like intelligence, by making AI more flexible, robust and broad. More specifically, the lab's research is focused on:
Building large-scale AI foundation models on supercomputers
Neural scaling laws and emergent behjaviors: understanding and predicting scaling properties, inclujding emergence, in such models, with respect to both capabiities and alignment metrics.
Continual Learning , Robustness and OoD Generalization
Nonlinear dynamical neural systems
RL and bio-inspired models of intelligent behavior
With this CERC Chair, Dr. Irina Rish proposes to augment AI by developing better computational models and connecting AI research with vast amounts of knowledge about the mind and brain from biology, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy and other disciplines. This CERC program also aims at building a community of researchers who can bridge the gap between these disciplines, paving the way towards a new, unified science of both biological and artificial intelligence.
Recent documents, presentations and podcasts outlining the key philosophy behind this CERC-AAI program:
2023 Midterm Research Report and Plan
July 2023: Overview of CERC Research Activities
CERC AAI 2020 proposal (original vision)
Continual Learning at Scale - Irina Rish -CoLLAs 2023
AGI, Complex Systems, Transhumanism (NeurIPS 2022)
Build artificial general intelligence (Dec 2020)
Irina Rish—AGI, Scaling, Alignment (Oct 2022)
Out-of-distribution generalization (March 2022)
Autonomous AI (2020)