Alan Chan

Alan Chan

PhD Student

Mila

RLAI

Introduction

I am a PhD student at Mila, advised by Nicolas Le Roux. Previously at Amii + UAlberta, I was an MSc student with Martha White. My research priorities include reinforcement learning, governance of AI, FATE (Fairness, Accountability, Transparency, Ethics), and value alignment. In addition to my research interests, I love to travel, read, and talk to new people every day! Please feel free to reach out to chat about anything!

Interests

  • Reinforcement learning
  • AI Governance
  • FATE
  • Alignment

Education

  • PhD in Computer Science, 2025

    Université de Montréal

  • MSc in Computing Science, 2020

    University of Alberta

  • BSc in Mathematics, 2018

    University of Alberta

Recent Papers

Loss of Control: "Normal Accidents" and AI Systems

A thread in recent work on the social impacts of AI systems is whether certain properties of a domain should preclude the application …
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The Limits of Global Inclusion in AI Development

Those best-positioned to profit from the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) systems are those with the most economic power. …
Alan Chan, Chinasa Okolo, Zachary Terner, Angelina Wang
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Approaching Ethical Impacts in AI Research: The Role of a Graduate Student

Extant societal challenges and the problematic applications of algorithmic systems so far have motivated broader consideration of the …
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Inverse Policy Evaluation for Value-based Sequential Decision-making

Value-based methods for reinforcement learning lack generally applicable ways to derive behavior from a value function. Many approaches …
Alan Chan, Kris de Asis, Richard S. Sutton
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Training Recurrent Neural Networks Online by Learning Explicit State Variables

Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) allow an agent to construct a state-representation from a stream of experience, which is essential in …
Somjit Nath, Vincent Liu, Alan Chan, Xin Li, Adam White, Martha White
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Research

I’m interested in (1) building a society more in accord with the demands of justice, (2) the development of AI to help to achieve these ends, and (3) the mitigation of the harms AI poses. I currently think a lot about:

  • Reinforcement learning, especially policy optimization
  • Governance of AI
  • FATE (Fairness, Accountability, Transparency, Ethics)
  • Value alignment

Recent & Upcoming Talks

MSc Seminar

My seminar for my MSc thesis.
Aug 14, 2020 12:00 AM
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Problems with Fair ML

This talk will be a mostly non-technical dive into problems that I find with a lot of fair ML research today. I will begin with some …
Jul 28, 2020 12:00 AM
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Recent Posts

Languages

I always struggle with the languages box on applications: what do I put for Cantonese and Mandarin? I’m sure that I don’t speak them fluently or even moderately well, but I’m not a beginner either.
Last updated on Nov 18, 2020 8 min read

Talking to Strangers

My last daily chat with a stranger was several months ago. Last year, motivated mostly by the positive experiences of a friend who had done a similar challenge, I decided to find somebody new—usually a student on campus—to talk to every day.
Last updated on Oct 2, 2020 7 min read

Coping and Learning

When I was in junior high school, I had already grown a shell of isolation. When we feel lonely, especially after a prolonged period of time, it is more difficult to reach out, even accept, the social interaction we need to warm the frigidity in our hearts.
Last updated on Aug 10, 2020 5 min read

Conflicts in Categorizing

Disclaimers I use the word category quite loosely in this piece. I do not refer to the mathematical field of Category Theory, although there may be some interesting, unexplored connections there.
Last updated on Aug 2, 2020 9 min read

Reviewing and Conferences

This piece is an imaginary dialogue between me and a friend about the process of reviewing for conferences. I’m currently working through my 6 NeurIPS reviews, and in the process have generated a lot of thoughts about my experiences.
Last updated on Jul 19, 2020 9 min read
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