Portrait de Irina Rish

Irina Rish

Membre académique principal
Chaire en IA Canada-CIFAR
Professeure titulaire, Université de Montréal, Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle
Sujets de recherche
Apprentissage en ligne
Apprentissage multimodal
Apprentissage par renforcement
Apprentissage profond
Modèles génératifs
Neurosciences computationnelles
Traitement du langage naturel

Biographie

Irina Rish est professeure titulaire à l'Université de Montréal (UdeM), où elle dirige le Laboratoire d'IA autonome. Membre du corps professoral de Mila – Institut québécois d’intelligence artificielle, elle est titulaire d'une chaire d'excellence en recherche du Canada (CERC) et d'une chaire en IA Canada-CIFAR. Irina dirige le projet INCITE du ministère américain de l'Environnement au sujet des modèles de fondation évolutifs sur les superordinateurs Summit et Frontier à l'Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF). Elle est cofondatrice et directrice scientifique de Nolano.ai.

Ses recherches actuelles portent sur les lois de mise à l'échelle neuronale et les comportements émergents (capacités et alignement) dans les modèles de fondation, ainsi que sur l'apprentissage continu, la généralisation hors distribution et la robustesse. Avant de se joindre à l'UdeM en 2019, Irina était chercheuse au Centre de recherche IBM Thomas J. Watson, où elle a travaillé sur divers projets à l'intersection des neurosciences et de l'IA, et dirigé le défi NeuroAI. Elle a reçu plusieurs prix IBM : ceux de l’excellence et de l’innovation exceptionnelle (2018), celui de la réalisation technique exceptionnelle (2017), et celui de l’accomplissement en recherche (2009). Elle détient 64 brevets et a écrit plus de 120 articles de recherche, plusieurs chapitres de livres, trois livres publiés et une monographie sur la modélisation éparse.

Étudiants actuels

Stagiaire de recherche
Doctorat - UdeM
Co-superviseur⋅e :
Doctorat - UdeM
Co-superviseur⋅e :
Maîtrise recherche - UdeM
Doctorat - UdeM
Co-superviseur⋅e :
Doctorat - Concordia
Superviseur⋅e principal⋅e :
Doctorat - UdeM
Collaborateur·rice de recherche - UdeM
Maîtrise recherche - Concordia
Superviseur⋅e principal⋅e :
Doctorat - UdeM
Collaborateur·rice de recherche
Co-superviseur⋅e :
Visiteur de recherche indépendant - -
Collaborateur·rice de recherche - UdeM
Collaborateur·rice alumni - UdeM
Superviseur⋅e principal⋅e :
Doctorat - UdeM
Superviseur⋅e principal⋅e :
Doctorat - UdeM
Maîtrise recherche - Concordia
Superviseur⋅e principal⋅e :
Collaborateur·rice de recherche - UdeM
Collaborateur·rice alumni - UdeM
Doctorat - Concordia
Superviseur⋅e principal⋅e :
Maîtrise recherche - UdeM
Collaborateur·rice alumni - UdeM
Collaborateur·rice de recherche
Collaborateur·rice de recherche - UdeM
Collaborateur·rice de recherche - McGill
Superviseur⋅e principal⋅e :
Doctorat - UdeM
Co-superviseur⋅e :
Collaborateur·rice de recherche
Co-superviseur⋅e :
Collaborateur·rice de recherche - Polytechnique
Doctorat - McGill
Superviseur⋅e principal⋅e :
Maîtrise recherche - UdeM
Co-superviseur⋅e :
Doctorat - UdeM
Doctorat - McGill
Superviseur⋅e principal⋅e :
Collaborateur·rice de recherche
Doctorat - Concordia
Superviseur⋅e principal⋅e :
Doctorat - UdeM
Co-superviseur⋅e :
Collaborateur·rice alumni - UdeM
Baccalauréat - McGill
Doctorat - UdeM
Co-superviseur⋅e :
Maîtrise recherche - UdeM
Doctorat - McGill

Publications

GitChameleon: Unmasking the Version-Switching Capabilities of Code Generation Models
Eilif Benjamin Muller
Terry Yue Zhuo
Massimo Caccia
Introducing Brain Foundation Models
Hena Ghonia
Bruno Aristimunha
Md Rifat Arefin
Sylvain Chevallier
Brain function represents one of the most complex systems driving our world. Decoding its signals poses significant challenges, particularly… (voir plus) due to the limited availability of data and the high cost of recordings. The existence of large hospital datasets and laboratory collections partially mitigates this issue. However, the lack of standardized recording protocols, varying numbers of channels, diverse setups, scenarios, and recording devices further complicate the task. This work addresses these challenges by introducing the Brain Foundation Model (BFM), a suite of open-source models trained on brain signals. These models serve as foundational tools for various types of time-series neuroimaging tasks. This work presents the first model of the BFM series, which is trained on electroencephalogram signal data. Our results demonstrate that BFM-EEG can generate signals more accurately than other models. Upon acceptance, we will release the model weights and pipeline.
Language model scaling laws and zero-sum learning
Supriyo Chakraborty
Nima Chitsazan
This work aims to understand how, in terms of training dynamics, scaling up language model size yields predictable loss improvements. We fin… (voir plus)d that these improvements can be tied back to loss deceleration, an abrupt transition in the rate of loss improvement, characterized by piece-wise linear behavior in log-log space. Notably, improvements from increased model size appear to be a result of (1) improving the loss at which this transition occurs; and (2) improving the rate of loss improvement after this transition. As an explanation for the mechanism underlying this transition (and the effect of model size on loss it mediates), we propose the zero-sum learning (ZSL) hypothesis. In ZSL, per-token gradients become systematically opposed, leading to degenerate training dynamics where the model can't improve loss on one token without harming it on another; bottlenecking the overall rate at which loss can improve. We find compelling evidence of ZSL, as well as unexpected results which shed light on other factors contributing to ZSL.
μLO: Compute-Efficient Meta-Generalization of Learned Optimizers
LLMs and Personalities: Inconsistencies Across Scales
This study investigates the application of human psychometric assessments to large language models (LLMs) to examine their consistency and m… (voir plus)alleability in exhibiting personality traits. We administered the Big Five Inventory (BFI) and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised (EPQ-R) to various LLMs across different model sizes and persona prompts. Our results reveal substantial variability in responses due to question order shuffling, challenging the notion of a stable LLM "personality." Larger models demonstrated more consistent responses, while persona prompts significantly influenced trait scores. Notably, the assistant persona led to more predictable scaling, with larger models exhibiting more socially desirable and less variable traits. In contrast, non-conventional personas displayed unpredictable behaviors, sometimes extending personality trait scores beyond the typical human range. These findings have important implications for understanding LLM behavior under different conditions and reflect on the consequences of scaling.
RedPajama: an Open Dataset for Training Large Language Models
Maurice Weber
Daniel Y Fu
Quentin Gregory Anthony
Yonatan Oren
Shane Adams
Anton Alexandrov
Xiaozhong Lyu
Huu Nguyen
Xiaozhe Yao
Virginia Adams
Ben Athiwaratkun
Rahul Chalamala
Kezhen Chen
Max Ryabinin
Tri Dao
Percy Liang
Christopher Re
Ce Zhang
Using Unity to Help Solve Reinforcement Learning
Andrew Robert Williams
Vedant Vyas
Leveraging the depth and flexibility of XLand as well as the rapid prototyping features of the Unity engine, we present the United Unity Uni… (voir plus)verse — an open-source toolkit designed to accelerate the creation of innovative reinforcement learning environments. This toolkit includes a robust implementation of XLand 2.0 complemented by a user-friendly interface which allows users to modify the details of procedurally generated terrains and task rules with ease. Additionally, we provide a curated selection of terrains and rule sets, accompanied by implementations of reinforcement learning baselines to facilitate quick experimentation with novel architectural designs for adaptive agents. Furthermore, we illustrate how the United Unity Universe serves as a high-level language that enables researchers to develop diverse and endlessly variable 3D environments within a unified framework. This functionality establishes the United Unity Universe (U3) as an essential tool for advancing the field of reinforcement learning, especially in the development of adaptive and generalizable learning systems.
When Machines Outshine Humans in Object Recognition, Benchmarking Dilemma
Md Rifat Arefin
Jocelyn Faubert
Knowledge Distillation for Federated Learning: a Practical Guide
Federated Learning (FL) enables the training of Deep Learning models without centrally collecting possibly sensitive raw data. This paves th… (voir plus)e way for stronger privacy guarantees when building predictive models. The most used algorithms for FL are parameter-averaging based schemes (e.g., Federated Averaging) that, however, have well known limits: (i) Clients must implement the same model architecture; (ii) Transmitting model weights and model updates implies high communication cost, which scales up with the number of model parameters; (iii) In presence of non-IID data distributions, parameter-averaging aggregation schemes perform poorly due to client model drifts. Federated adaptations of regular Knowledge Distillation (KD) can solve and/or mitigate the weaknesses of parameter-averaging FL algorithms while possibly introducing other trade-offs. In this article, we provide a review of KD-based algorithms tailored for specific FL issues.
Spectra: A Comprehensive Study of Ternary, Quantized, and FP16 Language Models
Tejas Pandey
Arnab Kumar Mondal
Aaryan Bhagat
Simple and Scalable Strategies to Continually Pre-train Large Language Models
Unsupervised Concept Discovery Mitigates Spurious Correlations
Md Rifat Arefin
Francesco Locatello
Dianbo Liu
Models prone to spurious correlations in training data often produce brittle predictions and introduce unintended biases. Addressing this ch… (voir plus)allenge typically involves methods relying on prior knowledge and group annotation to remove spurious correlations, which may not be readily available in many applications. In this paper, we establish a novel connection between unsupervised object-centric learning and mitigation of spurious correlations. Instead of directly inferring subgroups with varying correlations with labels, our approach focuses on discovering concepts: discrete ideas that are shared across input samples. Leveraging existing object-centric representation learning, we introduce CoBalT: a concept balancing technique that effectively mitigates spurious correlations without requiring human labeling of subgroups. Evaluation across the benchmark datasets for sub-population shifts demonstrate superior or competitive performance compared state-of-the-art baselines, without the need for group annotation. Code is available at https://github.com/rarefin/CoBalT.