Kosta Derpanis (sabbatical in Zurich)

Lecture slides for my "Introduction to #ComputerVision" and "#DeepLearning in Computer Vision" courses. 🆕 Gaussian Splatting 🆕 Flow Matching 🆕 Sparse Autoencoders The included videos do not contain voiceovers yet, planned for a future revision.

Pre-Training Isn’t Bitter Enough – Machine Learning Blog | ML@CMU | Carnegie Mellon University blog.ml.cmu.edu/2026/06/17/pre…

So I have been busy these last few months! Happy to present : The Little Book of Reinforcement Learning

Vibe prompting 😉

Prompt should have read use the first image as the reference image, but it worked out.

I now have a thread in which Claude, called out for lying about evidence, says, "I said it because it made for a tidy closing note, not because it was true". A stark example of a common pattern. I hope people keep these stories in mind as they rely on these products for science.

@prof_kamilov 😍

Living by the lake (Madison, WI)

“Escher! Get your ass up here!”

@lily_goli @eccvconf

Working on vision for robotics, biology, or chemistry? Passionate about pushing science forward? The submission deadline for our #ECCV2026 workshop, Geometric Intelligence, is coming up on July 20! Don’t forget to submit your work: geo-int.github.io

The book, along with its supplementary material, is available for free here: github.com/alxndrTL/littl… Or you can buy a paperback copy on Amazon by looking up its name (sold at cost) It is a much revised version of a video series I gave in 2020 here: @alexandretl/courses" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">youtube.com/@alexandretl/c…

Robots 🤖 shouldn't think 🤔 equally hard about everything! Andrew led this great work on learning when to spend test-time compute on diffusion policies: eg. few denoising steps for free-space motion, many samples to explore grasp modes. Learned by interacting w/ a frozen policy!

Sweet end to #ICML2026 and Seoul 😃💪

This is the capital of robotics! 🌁 Silicon Valley is home to so many physical AI companies that you could spend a month visiting them and still not see even 10% of them (trust me, I tried). It took me 3x to create this map as it did to create any other. And the truth is, it's still incomplete. Let’s see why this is the case. So, the Bay Area is the world's leading ecosystem for robotics startups, bringing together top AI talent, top universities, experienced founders, and unmatched access to capital. The region is anchored by Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley, two of the world's top universities for AI and robotics. They produce a constant stream of researchers, founders, and breakthrough technologies. The Bay Area is also home to many of the companies shaping the future of robotics and AI, including @Figure_robot, @physical_int , and major AI labs such as @OpenAI. This concentration of talent makes it easy for startups to recruit experienced engineers and collaborate with leaders in embodied AI. Not mentioning that it  is also home to leaders such as @NVIDIARobotics , whose headquarters and leadership in AI chips power much of today's robotics revolution, and @Tesla, whose work on autonomous driving and humanoid robots has created a deep pool of robotics, AI, and manufacturing talent. Perhaps its biggest advantage is access to capital and ambition. The Bay Area has the world's deepest network of venture capital firms, serial entrepreneurs, and technical leaders who are willing to fund bold, long-term robotics companies. In the comments I'll post the companies from the ecosystem. ‼️ Note that Bay Area has >300 robotics companies, research labs, and innovation hubs, so this is a curated selection of the notable product companies, not an exhaustive census! P.S. I'm constantly working on improving these maps, so if your company is missing, please DM me with basic info about the co, and I will include it in the next release. ~~ ♻️ Join the weekly robotics newsletter, and never miss any news → ziegler.substack.com

“Family” photo 🤓

@i_ikhatri 🤓

@CSProfKGD oh wow you haven't seen this one yet? it's a classic, one of the best movies ever made imo and I'm not just biased because it shares a name w/ my favorite company ever ;)

Late night reading outside the Opernhaus. Looking forward to see the movie (finally!).

Today’s office view 😎

@giffmana @sammtmd Kids are fearless 😅

@CSProfKGD @sammtmd Now imagine with the kiddo sitting in front of you and randomly jumping in. So much fun

My office view this afternoon. Swimming in Lake Zurich 🤗