My journey from DeepMind intern to mentor

Former intern turned intern supervisor, Richard Everett, describes his journey to DeepMind, sharing suggestions and recommendation for aspiring DeepMinders. The 2023 internship purposes will open on the sixteenth September, please go to https://dpmd.ai/internshipsatdeepmind for extra data.

What was your path to DeepMind?

Like many individuals, I beloved taking part in multiplayer video video games rising up. The interactions between human gamers and seemingly clever computer-controlled gamers fascinated me, and I dreamed a couple of profession in AI. This dream led me to pursue an undergraduate diploma in laptop science; a typical (however not unique!) pathway into the business. Nevertheless, after engaged on a number of analysis initiatives with my professors, I developed a style for analysis and determined to proceed on in the direction of a PhD.

Across the time I began my PhD, a small startup known as DeepMind was acquired by Google. As I appeared nearer at their analysis, I rapidly discovered it inspiring my very own analysis, and so in 2016 I made a decision to use for an internship. After a handful of interviews with engineers, researchers, and program managers, I didn’t get a proposal. Nevertheless, having met a bunch of nice researchers I made a decision to reapply the next yr and acquired the internship. That have led to a full-time provide and I’ve been right here since, engaged on AI and serving to interns who’re going by the identical expertise.

Are you able to describe the internship interview course of?

The interview course of was thorough, nevertheless it’s advanced since I utilized. Right now’s interns can anticipate all the course of to final only a few months, which features a technical and a crew interview. In my software, I listed the researchers that I used to be significantly serious about working with, and was fortunate sufficient to talk with them after my technical interview. I used to be so excited. This was a singular alternative to speak about my previous work and brainstorm potential internship initiatives with world-class researchers I had adopted for years, and ask them questions on DeepMind.

My recruiters had been extremely useful in guiding me by the method and offering assets to assist put together for the interviews. For the technical interview, I ready by revisiting my first-year undergraduate programs on arithmetic, statistics, and laptop science. For instance, reviewing linear algebra, calculus, chance, algorithms, and information buildings. I additionally practised some coding workouts the place I attempted to speak by what I used to be doing.

For the crew interviews, I reviewed the crew’s current work (e.g. papers, weblog posts, articles, talks), and considered how my work may relate to it. I additionally got here up with a brief record of questions I wished to know extra about, just like the collaboration model of the crew and the way previous internships had labored out.

What was it like whenever you joined full-time?

It took me a very long time to search out my footing! With so many thrilling initiatives occurring and good individuals to speak to, working at DeepMind usually appears like being a child on this planet’s best sweet retailer. For interns, growing and specializing in only one mission out of so many is difficult, particularly inside a restricted timespan. This was a problem I discovered in my very own internship, and these days I get pleasure from supporting new starters by this course of who’re experiencing the identical pleasure for the primary time.

Why did you become involved with the internship programme as a full-time worker?

Having gone by the internship expertise myself, I can relate to what our aspiring and present interns undergo. It may be nerve wracking, thrilling, complicated, and provoking, all on the similar time. After receiving a lot assist throughout my internship, I wished to offer that very same assist to future interns. Because of this, I now coordinate my crew’s internship programme and am in a number of teams which repeatedly search to enhance the programme throughout DeepMind. I additionally interview, mentor, and handle interns, in addition to spend time reaching out and speaking to potential candidates (e.g. at GraceHopper, NeurIPS, and analysis talks).

What kind of labor do interns do?

It’s at all times thrilling to see what interns resolve to pursue throughout their time with us. On my crew (Recreation Idea and Multi-Agent), we work carefully with interns to co-develop initiatives which they’ll make their very own, and this has led to an unimaginable vary of initiatives through the years.

To focus on only a few public examples, interns have designed new multi-agent environments (e.g. impressed by the social deduction game Among Us and assembly lines), developed infrastructure for studying human-agent interaction, used cooperative sport idea for language models and negotiating team formation, labored on multi-agent inverse reinforcement learning, uncovered adversarial examples for reinforcement learning, mastered the game of Stratego, and utilized evolutionary game theory to online learning.

How would you describe the tradition at DeepMind? And your crew?

In brief – type and collaborative. Over time, I’ve heard dozens of interns and new starters make the identical comment: “I can’t imagine how pleasant and supportive everyone seems to be!”. The period of time, vitality, and assist that DeepMinders give one another is exceptional, and this extends all the best way from firm veterans to first-day new starters. Everyone seems to be at all times pleased to seize a espresso to talk, talk about their work, share suggestions, and accomplice collectively on initiatives.

For example, certainly one of my favorite initiatives at DeepMind (Learning Robust Real-Time Cultural Transmission without Human Data), got here from the shut collaboration between artists, designers, ethicists, program managers, QA testers, scientists, software program engineers, analysis engineers, and extra over two years. This numerous and collaborative tradition additionally extends to our internships, with intern initiatives sometimes involving a number of collaborators and advisors from throughout the corporate (spanning roles, groups, and even places of work!). For instance, a number of of our interns on the Recreation Idea and Multi-Agent crew work carefully with DeepMinders from each the London and Paris places of work.

From left to proper, a subset of the mission’s authors: Ashley Edwards (RS, London), Miruna Pislar (RE, Paris), Kory Mathewson (RS, Montreal), Alexander Zacherl (Designer, London), Richard Everett (RS; London), Edward Hughes (RE, London), Avishkar Bhoopchand (RE, London).

Any suggestions for aspiring DeepMind interns?

For college kids who’re getting serious about AI, there are a great deal of simply accessible resources accessible so that you can independently study extra concerning the business and DeepMind: from papers, blog posts, and talks to open-source code, demos, and tutorials. It’s simpler than ever to get caught in! You can even become involved in workshops and conferences, lots of which supply scholar reductions and mentorship alternatives (e.g. Deep Learning Indaba, Cooperative AI). For me, I discovered my love of AI analysis by speaking to professors about their analysis in-between lessons, engaged on initiatives with them, after which reaching out to different researchers within the areas that excited me.

DeepMind is made up of type, collaborative, and pushed individuals from all walks of life, and our internship programme displays that. Whether or not you’re an undergraduate or PhD scholar, finding out a technical, bodily, or social sciences topic, and have AI/ML expertise or not, there’s doubtless an internship alternative for you. We provide internships throughout varied groups in Analysis, Engineering, Science, Ethics & Society, and Operations.

Having gone by the method myself (twice even), I can fully perceive and relate to how intimidating it may be to use. I’ve spoken to so many extremely proficient college students who incorrectly imagine that DeepMind is out of attain or that their abilities are inadequate, and due to this fact don’t even apply. In case you are contemplating making use of for an internship, my real recommendation for you is to only do it. You don’t have anything to lose, and maybe each you and DeepMind have rather a lot to realize.