Trevor Chow
Hey - I’m Trevor!
At my core, I am interested in online learning - systems that can take incomplete information from the world to make better decisions in real-time.
I work on one instance of this, teachable browser agents, at Moonglow, and write about two others, AI and financial markets, at Bunnyhopping.
My background is in mathematics at Stanford, where I spent most of my time building language models that learn at inference time with Hazy Research Lab.
I’ve also worked on market making index options at Optiver, and in particular, algorithms that respond to dynamics in orderbook microstructure.
When I’m not working, I split my time between ski slopes, skydiving dropzones and Eras Tour concerts. Say hi @tmychow!
Bookshelf
Things I Say Too Often
Essays
From Apples to Strawberries
ChatGPT was a big deal, but o1 is a bigger deal. It marks the start of the "search" paradigm for LLMs.
Three Kuhnian Revolutions in ML Training
The science of pretraining LLMs has faced three Kuhnian revolutions in the last 4 years. The dominant theme is the growing importance of data.
The Vanguard of the Revolution
Index funds are socialism, in the best and worst sense.
This Time isn't Different
The anatomy of the 2022 crypto crash mirrors the 2008 financial crisis, involving an unmet demand for safe assets and an accompanying shadow banking system.
Storytelling in Kennywood Park
Monetary policy works in practice, not in theory. We don't understand its exact mechanisms, even as we can see its effects.
Line Goes Up
Economic growth is the phenomenon that underwrites all other value, but it is fragile and not an inevitability.
From Apples to Strawberries
ChatGPT was a big deal, but o1 is a bigger deal. It marks the start of the "search" paradigm for LLMs.
Three Kuhnian Revolutions in ML Training
The science of pretraining LLMs has faced three Kuhnian revolutions in the last 4 years. The dominant theme is the growing importance of data.
The Vanguard of the Revolution
Index funds are socialism, in the best and worst sense.
This Time isn't Different
The anatomy of the 2022 crypto crash mirrors the 2008 financial crisis, involving an unmet demand for safe assets and an accompanying shadow banking system.
Storytelling in Kennywood Park
Monetary policy works in practice, not in theory. We don't understand its exact mechanisms, even as we can see its effects.
Line Goes Up
Economic growth is the phenomenon that underwrites all other value, but it is fragile and not an inevitability.Research
Smoothie: Label Free Language Model Routing
LLM routing scores can be learned without labelled data using a weak-supervision-inspired technique. Accepted to NeurIPS ‘24. Blog post here. Code here.
What Causes Polysemanticity?
Polsemanticity can arise incidentally, due to regularisation pressures and random noise during training. Accepted to BGPT & Re-Align @ ICLR ‘24. Blog post here. Code here.
Explainable Detection of Online Sexism
Fine-tuned BERT models can provide explainable classification of sexist text. Accepted to SemEval @ ACL ‘23.
Transformative AI, Existential Risk, and Real Interest Rates
The arrival of transformative AI implies an increase in real interest rates. Accepted to Oxford GPR ‘23 and covered by Vox, The Economist, The FT, MR etc. Blog post here.
Smoothie: Label Free Language Model Routing
LLM routing scores can be learned without labelled data using a weak-supervision-inspired technique. Accepted to NeurIPS ‘24. Blog post here. Code here.
What Causes Polysemanticity?
Polsemanticity can arise incidentally, due to regularisation pressures and random noise during training. Accepted to BGPT & Re-Align @ ICLR ‘24. Blog post here. Code here.
Explainable Detection of Online Sexism
Fine-tuned BERT models can provide explainable classification of sexist text. Accepted to SemEval @ ACL ‘23.