We are thrilled to share the outcome of the recent (03 - 05.07) relAI retreat, which brought together more than 50 fellows and students in Miesbach. Over the course of three days, participants engaged in intriguing discussions, insightful keynotes, and a variety of activities focused on the various aspects of reliability in AI. 

Among the highlights of the event were inspiring keynote presentations. These spanned all four research areas of our school: Mathematical and Algorithmic Foundations, Medicine & Healthcare, Robotics & Interacting Systems and Algorithmic Decision-Making.

Students got to know each other better during the Speedgeeking and Lightning Talks sessions. The first one consisted of five minutes one to one discussions on questions relevant to relAI students. The Lightning Talks, one minute presentations of each student´s research topic, allowed for a fast though comprenhesive view of the research carried out throughout relAI.

A part of the retreat followed an unconference format, fostering engaging group discussions on various challenges of reliability of AI. These ranged from the lack of sufficiently large datasets in medicine and healthcare, to explainability of foundation models and the societal impacts of large language models.  
Some of the discussions focused on improving the relAI program, such as our relAI seminar, relAI blog and relAI safety hackathon. 

Towards the end of the retreat, relAI Fellows celebrated the third relAI Fellows assembly, a successful meeting that tackled organizational and research issues of the school.

As relAI integrates into the Universities of Excellence, TUM and LMU, bringing together members who work and study across various parts of Munich, events like this retreat are invaluable. They strengthen the "relAI family," fostering collaboration, scientific exchange and community spirit. We are already looking forward to the next retreat! 

Thank you to everyone who participated and contributed to making this event a great success. 

Day 2 of the 2023 relAI retreat combined inspiring keynote talks by relAI fellows Sandra Hirche (“Learning Controls with Guarantees”) and Johannes Maly (“Implicit regularization of training algorithms and resource efficiency”) with more sessions of lightning talks and two rounds of group discussions, a new activity introduced for the first time during this year's retreat.

The first group discussion session dealt with research topics suggested by fellows and students. The presentations of the discussions’ outcomes showed the intensity and depth with which these discussions had been conducted. The second round of discussions focused on relAI organizational topics such as the relAI Blog and Alumni and were very productive. They were presented on the last day of the retreat with amazing outcomes, including a newly founded student committee to coordinate the new relAI blog, and a student representative responsible for building a relAI alumni network. The election of new student representatives and IDP discussion sessions rounded off two very successful days.

Although the weather was very much November-like, everyone enjoyed the talks, fruitful discussions and social activities in this great location. The preparations for the next retreat have already started; it will take place in summer 2024 and we’re looking forward to gathering the relAI family again.

From November 16th to November 18th, the relAI family gathered at the Yachthotel Chiemsee for its second retreat.

The retreat started on the 16th with a warm opening by our two directors, Stephan Günnemann and Gitta Kutyniok. Afterwards, the relAI fellow Debarghya Ghoshdastidar gave the first keynote talk about “Over-parameterization and Over-fitting: Myths, theory and tools” followed by a very lively discussion around this topic.

Day One´s program concluded with a highlight of this year's retreat, a round of lightning talks, where each of our students introduced themselves and their research focus in one minute. Spread over the two days of the retreat, the one minute presentations together with the social interactions resulted in everyone having a very good idea about what interests all the other students have.