AI Research firm | Zug/Zurich area | Full time | On site | 100-200k chf/annum | 1 year research residency program.
I am starting a new AI research team funded by applying ML to crypto algo trading. Over the last three years years, the ML-based trading operation turned 5 digits into 9 digits, trading a volume of around 1-4B per day, with a team that has grown to 7 engineers. The crypto markets are a bit more calm now, so things don’t look as good as before, but still good enough to move on with the plan of using trading profits to fund the research operation.
To be clear, I did start the trading operation with the intention to fund fundamental AI research (capability and safety) since the very beginning. In the meantime, both AI and crypto markets went through boom and bust cycles, and I expect there will be many more to come. We need to build an operation that can go through many such cycles which is why I want to grow the research team slowly and cautiously.
This is the first role for the research team. It includes studying and doing research together with me. The contract will last 1 year by default and end. If the research is promising, and if finances allow, it can be extended into a full-time research role. The compensation for the initial residency program will depend on the person applying and can be higher for exceptional candidates.
The high-level research agenda is whatever might help to get to AGI in the long run, with safety in mind. My own research interests are the following: deep learning, probabilistic programming, world models, self-play, and more recently LLMs. With regards to LLMs, I’m interested in studying their inner workings, for example how optimising for a simple objective (predicting the next token) gives rise to “emergent behavior” such as the ability to count, or theory of mind.
If interested, contact me at not_a_cat at fastmail. co[m].