Portrait of Razvan Pascanu

Razvan Pascanu

Affiliate Member
Senior Research Scientist, Google DeepMind
Research Topics
Continual Learning
Deep Learning
Deep Neural Networks
Few-Shot Learning
Generalization
Geometric Deep Learning
Graph Neural Networks
Lifelong Learning
Machine Learning Theory
Mechanistic Interpretability
Neural Networks
Optimization
Recurrent Neural Networks
Reinforcement Learning
Representation Learning
Website
Google Scholar
LinkedIn

Publications

LLMs are Greedy Agents: Effects of RL Fine-tuning on Decision-Making Abilities
Thomas Schmied
Jörg Bornschein
Jordi Grau-Moya
Markus Wulfmeier
Razvan Pascanu
2025-04-01
arXiv (published)
doi.org
arxiv.org
Why do LLMs attend to the first token?
Federico Barbero
'Alvaro Arroyo
Xiangming Gu
Christos Perivolaropoulos
Michael M. Bronstein
Petar Veličković
Razvan Pascanu
2025-04-01
arXiv (published)
doi.org
arxiv.org
NoProp: Training Neural Networks without Full Back-propagation or Full Forward-propagation
Qinyu Li
Yee Whye Teh
Razvan Pascanu
The canonical deep learning approach for learning requires computing a gradient term at each block by back-propagating the error signal from… (see more) the output towards each learnable parameter. Given the stacked structure of neural networks, where each block builds on the representation of the block below, this approach leads to hierarchical representations. More abstract features live on the top blocks of the model, while features on lower blocks are expected to be less abstract. In contrast to this, we introduce a new learning method named NoProp, which does not rely on either forward or backwards propagation across the entire network. Instead, NoProp takes inspiration from diffusion and flow matching methods, where each block independently learns to denoise a noisy target using only local targets and back-propagation within the block. We believe this work takes a first step towards introducing a new family of learning methods that does not learn hierarchical representations -- at least not in the usual sense. NoProp needs to fix the representation at each block beforehand to a noised version of the target, learning a local denoising process that can then be exploited at inference. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method on MNIST, CIFAR-10, and CIFAR-100 image classification benchmarks. Our results show that NoProp is a viable learning algorithm, is easy to use and computationally efficient. By departing from the traditional learning paradigm which requires back-propagating a global error signal, NoProp alters how credit assignment is done within the network, enabling more efficient distributed learning as well as potentially impacting other characteristics of the learning process.
2025-03-31
ArXiv (preprint)
arxiv.org
arxiv.org
NoProp: Training Neural Networks without Back-propagation or Forward-propagation
Qinyu Li
Yee Whye Teh
Razvan Pascanu
2025-03-31
ArXiv (preprint)
arxiv.org
arxiv.org
NoProp: Training Neural Networks without Full Back-propagation or Full Forward-propagation
Qinyu Li
Yee Whye Teh
Razvan Pascanu
The canonical deep learning approach for learning requires computing a gradient term at each block by back-propagating the error signal from… (see more) the output towards each learnable parameter. Given the stacked structure of neural networks, where each block builds on the representation of the block below, this approach leads to hierarchical representations. More abstract features live on the top blocks of the model, while features on lower blocks are expected to be less abstract. In contrast to this, we introduce a new learning method named NoProp, which does not rely on either forward or backwards propagation across the entire network. Instead, NoProp takes inspiration from diffusion and flow matching methods, where each block independently learns to denoise a noisy target using only local targets and back-propagation within the block. We believe this work takes a first step towards introducing a new family of learning methods that does not learn hierarchical representations -- at least not in the usual sense. NoProp needs to fix the representation at each block beforehand to a noised version of the target, learning a local denoising process that can then be exploited at inference. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method on MNIST, CIFAR-10, and CIFAR-100 image classification benchmarks. Our results show that NoProp is a viable learning algorithm, is easy to use and computationally efficient. By departing from the traditional learning paradigm which requires back-propagating a global error signal, NoProp alters how credit assignment is done within the network, enabling more efficient distributed learning as well as potentially impacting other characteristics of the learning process.
2025-03-31
ArXiv (preprint)
arxiv.org
arxiv.org
How do language models learn facts? Dynamics, curricula and hallucinations
Nicolas Zucchet
Jörg Bornschein
Stephanie Chan
Andrew Lampinen
Razvan Pascanu
Soham De
2025-03-27
ArXiv (preprint)
arxiv.org
arxiv.org
How do language models learn facts? Dynamics, curricula and hallucinations
Nicolas Zucchet
Jörg Bornschein
Stephanie Chan
Andrew Lampinen
Razvan Pascanu
Soham De
2025-03-27
ArXiv (preprint)
doi.org
arxiv.org
From Markov to Laplace: How Mamba In-Context Learns Markov Chains
Marco Bondaschi
Nived Rajaraman
Xiuying Wei
Kannan Ramchandran
Razvan Pascanu
Caglar Gulçehre
Michael C. Gastpar
Ashok Vardhan Makkuva
2025-02-14
ArXiv (preprint)
doi.org
arxiv.org
From Markov to Laplace: How Mamba In-Context Learns Markov Chains
Marco Bondaschi
Nived Rajaraman
Xiuying Wei
Kannan Ramchandran
Razvan Pascanu
Caglar Gulçehre
Michael C. Gastpar
Ashok Vardhan Makkuva
While transformer-based language models have driven the AI revolution thus far, their computational complexity has spurred growing interest … (see more)in viable alternatives, such as structured state space sequence models (SSMs) and Selective SSMs. Among these, Mamba (S6) and its variant Mamba-2 have shown remarkable inference speed ups over transformers while achieving comparable or superior performance on complex language modeling tasks. However, despite these architectural innovations and empirical successes, the fundamental learning capabilities of Mamba remain poorly understood. In this paper, we address this gap by studying in-context learning (ICL) on Markov chains and uncovering a surprising phenomenon: unlike transformers, even a single-layer Mamba efficiently learns the in-context Laplacian smoothing estimator, which is both Bayes and minimax optimal, for all Markovian orders. To explain this, we theoretically characterize the representation capacity of Mamba and reveal the fundamental role of convolution in enabling it to represent the optimal Laplacian smoothing. These theoretical insights align strongly with empirical results and, to the best of our knowledge, represent the first formal connection between Mamba and optimal statistical estimators. Finally, we outline promising research directions inspired by these findings.
2025-02-14
ArXiv (preprint)
arxiv.org
arxiv.org
Maxwell's Demon at Work: Efficient Pruning by Leveraging Saturation of Neurons
Simon Dufort-Labbé
Pierluca D'Oro
Evgenii Nikishin
Razvan Pascanu
Irina Rish
Pierre-Luc Bacon
Aristide Baratin
2025-02-13
TMLR (accepted)
doi.org
openreview.net
Agency Is Frame-Dependent
David Abel
Andre Barreto
Michael Bowling
Will Dabney
Shi Dong
Steven Hansen
A. Harutyunyan
Khimya Khetarpal
Clare Lyle
Razvan Pascanu
Georgios Piliouras
Doina Precup
Jonathan Richens
Mark Rowland
Tom Schaul
Satinder Singh
Agency is a system's capacity to steer outcomes toward a goal, and is a central topic of study across biology, philosophy, cognitive science… (see more), and artificial intelligence. Determining if a system exhibits agency is a notoriously difficult question: Dennett (1989), for instance, highlights the puzzle of determining which principles can decide whether a rock, a thermostat, or a robot each possess agency. We here address this puzzle from the viewpoint of reinforcement learning by arguing that agency is fundamentally frame-dependent: Any measurement of a system's agency must be made relative to a reference frame. We support this claim by presenting a philosophical argument that each of the essential properties of agency proposed by Barandiaran et al. (2009) and Moreno (2018) are themselves frame-dependent. We conclude that any basic science of agency requires frame-dependence, and discuss the implications of this claim for reinforcement learning.
2025-02-06
ArXiv (preprint)
arxiv.org
arxiv.org
Agency Is Frame-Dependent
David Abel
Andre Barreto
Michael Bowling
Will Dabney
Shi Dong
Steven Hansen
Anna Harutyunyan
Khimya Khetarpal
Clare Lyle
Razvan Pascanu
Georgios Piliouras
Doina Precup
Jonathan Richens
Mark Rowland
Tom Schaul
Satinder Singh
Agency is a system's capacity to steer outcomes toward a goal, and is a central topic of study across biology, philosophy, cognitive science… (see more), and artificial intelligence. Determining if a system exhibits agency is a notoriously difficult question: Dennett (1989), for instance, highlights the puzzle of determining which principles can decide whether a rock, a thermostat, or a robot each possess agency. We here address this puzzle from the viewpoint of reinforcement learning by arguing that agency is fundamentally frame-dependent: Any measurement of a system's agency must be made relative to a reference frame. We support this claim by presenting a philosophical argument that each of the essential properties of agency proposed by Barandiaran et al. (2009) and Moreno (2018) are themselves frame-dependent. We conclude that any basic science of agency requires frame-dependence, and discuss the implications of this claim for reinforcement learning.
2025-02-06
ArXiv (preprint)
doi.org
arxiv.org