Joel Lehman

Joel Lehman
Resident

Joel Lehman is a machine learning researcher interested in algorithmic creativity, AI safety, artificial life, and AI for wellbeing. Most recently he was a research scientist at OpenAI co-leading the Open-Endedness team (studying algorithms that can innovate endlessly). Previously he was a founding member of Uber AI Labs, first employee of Geometric Intelligence (acquired by Uber), and a tenure track professor at the IT University of Copenhagen. He co-wrote with Kenneth Stanley a popular science book called “Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned,” on what AI search algorithms imply for individual and societal accomplishment. He is known for co-inventing the novelty search algorithm, an evolutionary algorithm that discovers useful and interesting artifacts driven only by the pressure to creatively diverge from what it has discovered previously in the search. His recent interests include the intersection of machine learning with psychotherapy, and with moral philosophy.