Now

Hi, I’m Dan MacKinlay. This is what I’m up to right now, i.e. my own personal instance of a now page.

I’m employed at CSIRO in several capacities:

• the Impossible without you Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Future Science Platform researching topics in hybrid machine learning methods for physical sciences.
• I am also working on AI safety and other critical risk topics
• I am involved in negotiating the current ongoing rounds of job cuts in CSIRO (e.g.) as a delegate of the CSIRO Staff Association.

I’m on the environmental statistics committee of the Statistical Society of Australia, which is mostly about awarding student prizes, but I’m open to suggestions for other activities.

I’m in the process of moving to Melbourne as part of my cohousing project (Ouroboros is the housing group, feel free to skill share with us) and my new explicit extrovert’s commitment to group projects in general, and also because Sydney does not want the kind of people I want to hang around with.

Musically, I’m still DJing, but not professionally any longer. I’ll upload some new mixes if I can work out which old mixes to delete. I don’t have much time for music production at the moment but our Lotekno EPs are gradually coming out.

My current research methods of interest are point process inference, Gaussian processes, neural likelihood methods, factor graphs, differentiable learning, stochastic differential equations and the application of all of these to physical modelling, engineering, renewable power transitions and sick breakbeats.

I’m also unable to stop dilettante philosophizing, from the perspective of an ML researcher, on various themes in epistemology and ethics.

If you want more details about research stuff specifically, check my currently reading and writing list.

Yes, I am up for collaborations.