notacat

Unfortunately not for this first batch. If there is a second batch after this (~10 months from now), then yes.

Yes. You can submit an application as a team. Both of you should be present during calls related to the application. After that, it's ok if only one person can do the reporting/communication, even though it's better if you can both attend. There would be 2 grant contracts (one for each person individually, with the total split between the two)

Yes, please reach out and repost.

I didn't get the feeling that lesswrong is the right place for such a post. Is it? What tag should I use? Anything else I should know when posting there for these this kind of content?

You can send a regular email, I'm happy to chat about it.

I consider it outside the intended scope of the grant because your project (as I understand it) is about applying existing techniques to build a product. What I'm looking for is work that tries to understand or improve on them, or create new ones.

I'm interested in anything that can help us get a better understanding of ML-related topics: generalization, tranformers, optimization... So I have a bias in favor of experimentation and theoretical stuff, and less so about practical applications (eg AlphaFold as you mention). With the caveat that sometimes these applications do lead to discovery.

I want to get involved in the design/prototyping. My skills are Deep Learning, a bit of statistics, finance and frontend dev, and I played a lot of games. I'd say if I spent a few years on it myself, I eventually could make a prototype, but I feel given my position I have more leverage if I just act as an investor + co-designer. I also know this is a very risky investment and I understand that the most likely scenario is that nothing comes out of it (I made other similar investments in the past)

I said noita is the closest I found, but it's still pretty far from what I envision. I also understand that this idea is probably not enough to make a game compelling. It's more a mechanic that could be added to a broader game. There are many possibilities there which should be mostly chosen by an experienced team or studio and not by me.

Yea one plan would be to start with some kind of prototype, which should be possible in the 5-50k range I expect (could be a very small minimalist prototype by a single dev). Then if this looks fun, spec together a bigger project & fund it. I just don't have the right connections to game developers / studios.

I like the idea of finding experienced people. Do you have any pointers to find Discord channels with such people and/or having similar ideas?

One thing is that i'm willing to discuss and change my mind. So I think my best bet is to find a studio or people who are already having similar ideas and iterate from there

AI Research Residency Program (1 year) | Zug/Zurich area | Full time | On site | 100-200k CHF/annum

I am launching a new AI research organisation in the Zug/Zurich area. The goal of the organisation is to make a meaningful contribution towards solving AGI.

I am looking for employees number no. 1 and 2. This will ideally be someone with a history of interesting research and a clear agenda for future research. I am personally interested in LLM's, MuZero (https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.08265), Dreamer (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.04104v1.pdf) and DreamCoder (https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.08381), and think there are some interesting systems to be found by interpolating between these existing areas (however, please still apply even if your research isn't in these areas).

The project will be financed by my current company which has made extensive use of deep learning for the past 4 years. You will have access to the >100 top-end GPUs owned by this company.

The job will be structured as a research residency program in the first year, with the hope of transitioning successful candidates into full-time roles.

In your application, please include a high-level research proposal stating what you would work on.

To apply, email me at : not_a_cat at fastmail. co[m].

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].

Steady protocol | CTO | solidity | Remote or On-site | Zug, Switzerland | Full-time | 175-250k CHF + equity

The overall product is very simple: USDT that pays you the yield.

You will be able to go to curve, swap USDT or USDC to stUSD, and then earn ~4% APY by just holding stUSD (each day, wallet balance increases). You will also be able to go to the protocol website and see up-to-date bank reserves & stUSD debt, and the protocol stays overcolateralized at all times. We will have a focus on transparency and reducing all risks, including smart-contract, liquidity and collateralization risks.

There is no reason for centrally managed stablecoin issuers such as USDT or USDC to not share the yield on reserves with token holders, so we do just that.

We create a new stablecoin: stUSD, collateralized mostly by 3-month T-bills. 90% of the yield on reserves is paid to holders with the same mechanism Lido uses. stUSD is similar to stETH, and wstUSD similar to wstETH. (except yield comes from T-bills instead of staking rewards).

I am currently managing a prop trading firm (~1B average daily volume) that will operate a market maker and arbitrage for stUSD. We are very well positioned for such a project, as we have both the capital and lawyers+bank relationships (with the operation of our fund) to get it started.

The growth strategy is to be first to market at importing the “TradFi risk-free rate” into Defi, grow a large TVL through this position, and then grow the network effects of stUSD: usage as collateral, dexes, and lending pools.

The role will include the following: writing smart contracts, managing audits, documentation, and project website. I know good solidity devs but they cannot commit to full time, and I want someone onsite, full-time for this role.

If interested, email me [at] not_a_cat [at] fastmail dot com

Make PRT work (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit)

Inter-city Transit is currently not solved: trains suck, cars suck, metros suck. If you combine them in the right way, you are left with the best of each of them: individual pods managed by an automated central planning system. Small enough to fit in sewers inside the city, elevated outside, dynamically forming trains zipping at 100-200kmh inside the city and going exactly where you want them. Because you don't need tbms, the cost of a whole network is probably on part with a metro system, while having similar capacity and being much faster. Optionally you can have dual-mode pods that "downgrade" to normal cars using normal roads while your guideway network is not fully developed. Everyone seems to have given up on PRT, but I don't see where is the catch. If you do, please tell me.

On my day-to-day I apply deep learning to trading to raise money to do an AI-research lab (been going really well so far). This PRT-thing is an idea I'm obsessed about but it doesn't fit anywhere in my trading+research plans (I call it a mistress project). Anyway If you see the flaw in such a PRT idea please let me know, and I'll be able to discard it and be less distracted in my main AI research.

Research & prop trading firm | Zug/Zurich | Full time | On site (Visa sponsor)

We apply ML to algotrading. We plan to use the proceeds to fund a fundamental AI research lab. Our primary goal is making progress toward AGI. Over the last two years, we turned 5 digits into 9 digits, trading a volume of around 1-4B per day. We operate as a prop trading firm of 7 people, we are restructuring our operations and moving to Zug. The short term priorities are growing the trading team and starting the research operation.

We look for the following roles:

- Engineer (trading side): Design, implement and maintain the next version of our trading engine. Experience with market micro structure, writing robust code and dealing unreliable APIs required.

- Data Engineer: Design and implement a backend system for our data. We need to create a system to crawl our own trades and compute pnl (1B+ trades to date). Other tasks: maintaining our data pipeline for use by the machine learning, visualisation about the live trades and state of the trade engine.

Compensation: 200-300k, bonus scheme with reinvestment in the fund, 1-3% options with 4y vesting. Switzerland or EU location preferred, but will consider Visa sponsor for very good candidates. To apply, email me at: not underscore a underscore cat at fastmail dot com.

Keywords: Trading side: cryptocurrency bitcoin ethereum machine learning deep learning algotrading market making high frequency trading limit orderbook liquidity provision market microstructure binance okex ftx python pytorch pandas numpy ssh aws typescript postgresql parquet pycharms numba rust backtest uniswap-v3 automated market maker liquidity pool arbitrage yield farming funding arbitrage prop trading hedge fund Research side: probabilistic programming simulation generative models learning-to-learn inference modelling data augmentation causality self-play GANs transformers bayesian-inference

Research & prop trading firm. Zug/Zurich, Full time, On site (visa sponsor).

We apply ML to algotrading. We use the proceeds to fund a fundamental AI research lab. Our primary goal is making progress toward AGI. Over the last two years, we turned 5 digits into 9 digits, trading a volume of around 1-4B per day. We operate as a prop trading firm of 7, we are in the process of restructuring and moving all operations to Zug. The short term priorities are growing the trading team and starting the research operation.

We look for the following roles:

- Engineer (trading side): Design, implement and maintain the next version of our trading engine. Experience with market micro structure, writing robust code and dealing with unreliable APIs required.

- Engineer and/or team lead (ML side): Automate and maintain our current trading models. Improve our pipeline for model deployment, automated capital allocation and retraining.

- COO / Office manager. Fluent in Swiss german and english, experience running a business, coordinating lawyers and accountants. For this role, we require someone already in Zug or Zurich.

Keywords: Trading side: cryptocurrency bitcoin ethereum machine learning deep learning algotrading market making high frequency trading limit orderbook liquidity provision market microstructure binance okex ftx python jupyterlab pytorch pandas numpy aws typescript postgresql pycharms numba rust backtest uniswap automated market maker liquidity pool arbitrage yield farming funding arbitrage prop trading hedge fund Research side: probabilistic programming simulation generative models learning to learn inference modelling data augmentation causality self-play GANs transformers bayesian inference

If interested, email me at not_a_cat at fastmail com

Thanks for the additional suggestions. If you want to take this offline and setup a private call email me at not_a_cat at fastmail

Staying remote was a consideration indeed. We generally have a better time when the team is together. My vision for the long-term research is "a bunch of phds in a room". According to that vision, we have to agree where the room is.

Thanks for the input.

The atmosphere change is an interesting hypothesis. It's one I though about but haven't researched much. Do you know good sources for reading about it?

With the team, we agree that me not being physically present sucks for everyone (in the plan where most people are in London but I'm not). We also think that things will work great in Zug because we can eventually open a second office in Zurich, and Zurich is a very decent tech hub for talent (for trading, crypto and and ML research).

What makes the choice tough is my belief that London is the "superior" tech hub in Europe, and I don't like missing out on it. I'm tempted to try an extended stay in London to see if the headache eventually goes away while there. But it's also a very unpleasant experiment, which makes me want to just go to Zug.

Regarding your questions:

1- I can work and I have energy when I have the headaches. But they are unpleasant and ruin my mood over longer periods, eg after a few days I don't look forward to doing things and I'm mostly concerned with feeling better, which ultimately affect my productivity quite a bit.

2- I have a daily log, and headaches are very correlated with location. I know that I will feel good in Zug, so if I want to solve the headache for good, going there is a good option. I also thought about quitting altogether (I have enough to retire and finance ambitious projects). But I think the best course of action is making the trading independent of myself by hiring people and transferring knowledge, then start the AI research operation. The AI research operation is my long term goal. I plan to operate it independently but in tandem with the trading. Both the trading and research will benefit from each other long term.

3-

- Going to London: potentially suffering long term from the headache and having to live elsewhere and away from the team

- Going to Zug: missing out on London

- Quitting: missing out on a potential bright future of the trading operation

Research & prop trading firm | London/Zug/Zurich | On site, Full time

We apply ML to algotrading. We plan to use the proceeds to fund a fundamental AI research lab. Our primary goal is making progress toward AGI. Over the last two years, we turned 5 digits into 9 digits, trading a volume of around 1-4B per day. We operate as a prop trading firm of 7 people, we are about to restructure the operations and move to a new location (TBD). The short term priority are growing the trading team and starting the research operation.

We look for the following roles: - Strong engineer (trading side): Design, implement and maintain the current and next versions of our trading engine. Experience with market micro structure, writing robust code and dealing unreliable APIs required. - Strong engineer and/or team lead (ML side): Automate and maintain our current trading models. Improve retraining and automated deployment and scaling systems. Experiment with new trading strategies. - Office manager

What we offer: 150-300k + equity + share of strategy profits re-investable in the fund

Keywords: Trading side: cryptocurrency bitcoin ethereum machine learning deep learning algotrading market making high frequency trading limit orderbook liquidity provision market microstructure binance okex ftx python pytorch pandas numpy ssh aws typescript postgresql parquet pycharms numba rust backtest uniswap v3 automated market maker liquidity pool arbitrage yield farming funding arbitrage prop trading hedge fund Research side: probabilistic programming simulation generative models learning to learn inference modelling data augmentation causality self-play GANs transformers

If interested email me at not_a_cat at fastmail dot com