British Open-ended Learning and Discovery Lab

[Jamie Heagerty @JamieHeagerty]

BOLD is brilliant from @KanishkaNarayan - just look at some of the things the founders have done 🧵

[laura toni @tonizza82]

Very excited and honoured to launch BOLD!

3 universities, 6 co-leaders, outstanding researchers, all together with one goal: building a national AI Research Lab breaking discoveries in fundamental AI, toward open-ended learning, & open-source AI.

Stay tuned!

[Kanishka Narayan MP @KanishkaNarayan]

🚨 2 major new AI labs in the UK 🚨

3 months ago, we launched a £40m call for a fundamental AI lab in the UK.

Given the exceptional bids we received, we have doubled down: 2 new AI labs, £60m seed funding.

▪️@BOLD_LAB_AI: led by @j_foerst, with an exceptional team of @CULLYAntoine, @shimon8282, @tonizza82, Ani Calinescu & @_rockt

▪️SOFAIR: led by Prof David Barber, with a world-leading team of Mirella Lapata, @yaringal and @LourdesAgapito

The best of UK academia, government and industry, together, to make fundamental advances in AI 🚀

https://t.co/bk5HMyXzSi

[Tim Rocktäschel @_rockt]

It has been an absolute privilege and pleasure to build up @UCL_DARK with @egrefen, @robertarail and @jparkerholder over the past eight years. Yesterday, the UK government announced not just one but two national academic fundamental AI research labs. I am extremely excited to announce that @UCL_DARK will be sunsetted and merge with @FLAIR_Ox, @whi_rl, @UCL_LASP and AIRL, to form the British Open-ended Learning and Discovery (BOLD) Lab — @BOLD_Lab_AI.

This is a huge moment for academic AI research in the UK. Backed with £30m by @UKRI_News and @EPSRC, it provides a unique opportunity to attract leading international academic talent to the UK, and equip them with the computational resources to do groundbreaking exploratory AI research (more on the computational resources soon). It also creates a mentorship network of academics, industry leaders and entrepreneurs to educate young talent on how to translate fundamental AI research into real world impact.

I want to thank all the students who made @UCL_DARK successful, in particular our PhD alumni @MinqiJiang, @_samvelyan, @zhengyaojiang, @_robertkirk, @akbirkhan, @LauraRuis, @YingchenX, @PaglieriDavide, and the work of our honorary faculty @egrefen, @robertarail and @jparkerholder who were generously contributing to mentorship and research in their free time.

[Jakob Foerster @j_foerst]

Very excited to launch BOLD 🚀

BOLD is a national shot at ambitious bluesky fundamental AI research in an academic setting, fully committed to open-source and open-science.
BOLD's mission are research bets that would reshuffle the deck in AI if true. It will also be a launchpad for fast-tracking the British and European tech scene.
Oh - and @FLAIR_Ox is no more.

[British Open-ended Learning and Discovery Lab @bold_lab_ai]

Hello world :)
We are BOLD — the British Open-ended Learning and Discovery Lab!

BOLD is a new academic research lab fully focussed on paradigm breaking discoveries in fundamental AI. We work towards more efficient & open AI that is built around human needs and capabilities.

To pursue these breakthroughs, we pioneer new modes of collaboration in academia that are more focussed, resourced, agile, and collaborative. Rather than fragmenting resources, today we are sunsetting 5 of the UKs leading AI labs to join forces under our joined scientific vision.

Our vision is centered around three pillars:
⚡ Beyond backpropagation – questioning the foundations of the field.
🤝 Human-centric learning & discovery – treating humans as core to our algorithms
🤖 Embodied learning – fast learning and adapting methods that deal with the messy real world

BOLD is backed by @UKRI_News and @EPSRC with £30M – and this is just the beginning. We are urgently looking for partners and sponsors to 10x this.

👉 https://t.co/eFVFW31mqz

👉 https://t.co/Eoad4G18KL

@j_foerst, @CULLYAntoine, @tonizza82, @shimon8282, @tonizza82, Ani Calinescu & @_rockt

[Antoine Cully @CULLYAntoine]

Incredibly proud to be a co-director of @bold_lab_ai 🚀

Five outstanding labs, from three world-leading institutions, one shared mission — with the resources to deliver on it.

Let's build something in the UK that the entire world can benefit from. 👉 https://t.co/ZWILduRhtp

[British Open-ended Learning and Discovery Lab @bold_lab_ai]

@benjamin_ellis3 🙌

[British Open-ended Learning and Discovery Lab @bold_lab_ai]

Hello world :)
We are BOLD — the British Open-ended Learning and Discovery Lab!

BOLD is a new academic research lab fully focussed on paradigm breaking discoveries in fundamental AI. We work towards more efficient & open AI that is built around human needs and capabilities.

To pursue these breakthroughs, we pioneer new modes of collaboration in academia that are more focussed, resourced, agile, and collaborative. Rather than fragmenting resources, today we are sunsetting 5 of the UKs leading AI labs to join forces under our joined scientific vision.

Our vision is centered around three pillars:
⚡ Beyond backpropagation – questioning the foundations of the field.
🤝 Human-centric learning & discovery – treating humans as core to our algorithms
🤖 Embodied learning – fast learning and adapting methods that deal with the messy real world

BOLD is backed by @UKRI_News and @EPSRC with £30M – and this is just the beginning. We are urgently looking for partners and sponsors to 10x this.

👉 https://t.co/eFVFW31mqz

👉 https://t.co/Eoad4G18KL

@j_foerst, @CULLYAntoine, @tonizza82, @shimon8282, @tonizza82, Ani Calinescu & @_rockt