OpenAI Fellows Fall 2018 Final Projects

OpenAI has completed its second class of the OpenAI Fellows program, transitioning all six participants from machine learning beginners to full-time members of the technical staff. This apprenticeship program demonstrates that expertise in diverse scientific fields—such as mathematics, statistics, and classical music—can provide unique insights that advance AI research.

Program Outcomes and Staffing

All six Fellows from the Fall 2018 cohort completed projects investigating novel research ideas while embedded within OpenAI research teams. Following the six-month apprenticeship, OpenAI has hired all six participants as full-time members of its technical staff.

Educational Resources for the Community

To expand access to machine learning education, OpenAI has open-sourced part of the introductory curriculum used for the Fellows. This is provided through the "Spinning up in Deep RL" tutorial, which includes:

  • RL Code Examples: Practical implementations of reinforcement learning.
  • Educational Exercises: Guided tasks to build proficiency.
  • Documentation and Tutorials: Comprehensive guides designed to help users become skilled practitioners in reinforcement learning (RL).

Future Fellowships

OpenAI continues to recruit for its fellowship program, with the Summer 2019 round beginning in July 2019. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis for individuals seeking to transition from machine learning beginners to producing world-class ML contributions.

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