NeurIPS 2024 in Vancouver 🇨🇦

Fri, 20 Dec 2024 4 min read

Image credit: Olaf Lipinski

My First NeurIPS

I thought I could share my first NeurIPS impressions, from both the scientific and personal aspects! What better way to do this than with a short blog with some of the best photos I captured.

Getting to Vancouver

I flew from Heathrow (LHR) to Vancouver (YVR) with BA on an Airbus A350 (not needing to fear losing a door on the way to YVR). After a 9-hour flight, I was greeted by the nicely looking arrivals hall.

The arrivals hall at Vancouver International Airport (YVR). — Vancouver arrivals. (Image credit: Olaf Lipinski)

I flew in quite late, so I headed straight to the hotel, which was also very nicely lit.

Night view of my hotel in Vancouver with colorful illumination. — Night-time view. (Image credit: Olaf Lipinski)

The morning views were equally impressive:

Morning view from my hotel room showing Vancouver’s urban skyline. — Morning view. (Image credit: Olaf Lipinski)

Preparing for the Conference

Before starting with the conference, I had a couple days to myself, as I arrived slightly earlier. So, I attended a few social events, including a super fun hiking meetup and a few pub meet-ups! It was a great way to settle in to Vancouver, and to meet fellow researchers,

Having settled in, I went to get my badge before the conference began. This moment really made everything feel official — I was actually presenting at NeurIPS! I decided to also explore the convention centre a bit. It was decently busy, and while I was there, I also managed to pick up my poster.

Conference Highlights

During the conference, I had the opportunity to present my research on spatial relationships in emergent communication. My work explores how AI agents can develop their own language to refer to specific locations within their observations — the first demonstration of spatial deixis in emergent communication. You can read more about it in the links for this post!

Over the course of the main conference, I tried to attend as many sessions as possible. I enjoyed all the talks I went to and was very impressed by how well all of them were presented. Even when the topic area was quite outside my expertise, I could still grasp most of the content! One example was a talk by researchers from SEA AI Lab titled Stochastic Taylor Derivative Estimator: Efficient amortization for arbitrary differential operators. I also really enjoyed the keynotes by Sepp Hochreiter (my PhD research used quite a bit of his work!) and Ilya Sutskever.

Sepp Hochreiter presenting his research on xLSTMs during his keynote presentation at NeurIPS 2024. — Sepp Hochreiter discussing xLSTMs. (Image credit: Olaf Lipinski)

Ilya Sutskever and his keynote presentation discussing the trajectory of AI progress. — Ilya Sutskever talking about AI progress. (Image credit: Olaf Lipinski)

Connecting with Researchers

Outside of attending numerous talks and events, I also met up with the Singaporeans at NeurIPS! We had some great Malaysian 🇲🇾 food from Banana Leaf on Davies. It was wonderful meeting all of you!

Mee Goreng, or fried noodles. — 🇸🇬 Meetup Food - Mee Goreng at Banana Leaf. (Image credit: Olaf Lipinski)

Exploring Vancouver

Between sessions, I made time to explore the beautiful city of Vancouver. Granville Island was a definite highlight, with its food market and amazing views.

View of the hill at Granville Island. — Granville Island. (Image credit: Olaf Lipinski)

The food market there was very impressive.

Vibrant Granville food market, with many stalls and vendors. — Granville Market. (Image credit: Olaf Lipinski)

No trip to Canada would be complete without trying authentic poutine! Having previously tasted versions in Liverpool, I was eager to try the real thing. The combination of fries, cheese curds, and gravy did not disappoint!

Close-up of authentic Canadian poutine — french fries topped with cheese curds and gravy. — Poutine. (Image credit: Olaf Lipinski)

Workshop Sessions

One of the final items on my agenda was attending the workshops! I particularly enjoyed the System 2 Reasoning workshop and listening to Melanie Mitchell. I also enjoyed the talk by Nick Oh, whom I had met a couple of days before.

Photo of the slide of the System 2 Reasoning Workshop. — System 2 Reasoning Workshop. (Image credit: Olaf Lipinski)

Back to the UK

Finally, I had to bid Vancouver adieu and headed to the airport. The departures area was just as nice as arrivals! On my way out, I had to go to Salmon N Bannock and try their famous Bannock, a traditional Indigenous (deep-fried?) bread. As expected, it was super delicious. I flew back to LHR on another Airbus A350, and so had a safe trip both ways!

The departure hall of Vancouver International Airport. — Vancouver departures. (Image credit: Olaf Lipinski)

Final Thoughts

NeurIPS 2024 exceeded all my expectations, both professionally and personally. The quality of research, opportunities for networking, and the beauty of Vancouver combined to create an unforgettable experience.

I’m already hoping to make NeurIPS a yearly tradition! While I’ve shared many highlights here, there were countless other amazing people and presentations that have left a lasting impression on me. Thank you to everyone who made this conference so special!