Publications

Recent publications/preprints, for a full overview see my Google Scholar page.

• Try Depth Instead of Weight Correlations: Mean-field is a Less Restrictive Assumption for Variational Inference in Deep Networks
  Sebastian Farquhar, Lewis Smith, Yarin Gal
  Bayesian Deep Learning Workshop at NeurIPS 2019, BibTex

                    @article{farquhar_try_2019,
                      title={{Try} {Depth} Instead of Weight Correlations: Mean-field is a Less Restrictive Assumption for Variational Inference in Deep Networks},
                      author={Farquhar, Sebastian and Smith, Lewis and Gal, Yarin},
                      journal={Bayesian Deep Learning Workshop at NeurIPS},
                      year={2020}
                    }
                  

• Radial Bayesian Neural Networks: Beyond Discrete Support In Large-Scale Bayesian Deep Learning
  Sebastian Farquhar, Michael Osborne, Yarin Gal
  AI Stats 2020, BibTex

                    @article{farquhar_radial_2020,
                      title={{Radial} {Bayesian} Neural Networks: Beyond Discrete Support In Large-Scale Bayesian Deep Learning},
                      author={Farquhar, Sebastian and Osborne, Michael and Gal, Yarin},
                      journal={Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics},
                      year={2020}
                    }
                  

• A Unifying Bayesian View of Continual Learning
  Sebastian Farquhar, Yarin Gal
  Bayesian Deep Learning Workshop at NeurIPS 2018 Spotlight Talk, BibTex

                    @article{farquhar_unifying_2018,
                      title = {A {Unifying} {Bayesian} {View} of {Continual} {Learning}},
                      language = {en},
                      journal = {Bayesian Deep Learning Workshop at NeurIPS},
                      author = {Farquhar, Sebastian and Gal, Yarin},
                      year = {2018}
                    }
                  

• Towards Robust Evaluations of Continual Learning
  Sebastian Farquhar, Yarin Gal
  Lifelong Learning: A Reinforcement Learning Approach at ICML 2018 Spotlight Talk, BibTex

                    @article{farquhar_towards_2018,
                      title = {Towards {Robust} {Evaluations} of {Continual} {Learning}},
                      journal = {Lifelong Learning: A Reinforcement Learning Approach Workshop at ICML},
                      author = {Farquhar, Sebastian and Gal, Yarin},
                      year = {2018}
                    }
                  

• Differentially Private Continual Learning
  Sebastian Farquhar, Yarin Gal
  Privacy in Machine Learning and AI Workshop at ICML 2018, BibTex

                    @article{farquhar_differentially_2018,
                        title = {Differentially {Private} {Continual} {Learning}},
                        language = {en},
                        journal = {Privacy in Machine Learning and AI workshop at ICML},
                        author = {Farquhar, Sebastian and Gal, Yarin},
                        year = {2018}
                    }
                  

• The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence: Forecasting, Prevention, and Mitigation
  Miles Brundage et al.
  arXiv, BibTex

                    @article{brundage2018malicious,
                      title={The malicious use of artificial intelligence: Forecasting, prevention, and mitigation},
                      author={Brundage, Miles and Avin, Shahar and Clark, Jack and Toner, Helen and Eckersley, Peter and Garfinkel, Ben and Dafoe, Allan and Scharre, Paul and Zeitzoff, Thomas and Filar, Bobby and others},
                      journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:1802.07228},
                      year={2018}
                    }
                  

• Pricing Externalities to Balance Public Risks and Benefits of Research
  Sebastian Farquhar, Owen Cotton-Barratt, Andrew Snyder-Beattie
  Health Security. Volume 15 Number 4. 2017 BibTex

                    @article{farquhar_pricing_2017,
                      title={Pricing Externalities to Balance Public Risks and Benefits of Research},
                      author={Farquhar, Sebastian and Cotton-Barratt, Owen and Snyder-Beattie, Andrew},
                      journal={Health Security},
                      volume={15},
                      number={4},
                      pages={401--408},
                      year={2017},
                      publisher={Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. 140 Huguenot Street, 3rd Floor New Rochelle, NY 10801 USA}
                    }
                  

Reviewer

• NeurIPS - 2019 (Top 400 reviewers)
• ICML - 2019
• AAAI - 2019

Professional experience

Before my DPhil, I led the Global Priorities Project – a joint project of the Centre for Effective Altruism and the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford – which connects research from the University with the realities that policy-makers face in order to offer evidence-based non-partisan policy proposals. GPP focused on technological risk management and frameworks that encourage evidence-based policy-making.

I was Acting Executive Director of the Centre for Effective Altruism in 2015 – which works in Oxford to use evidence and analysis to make the world a better place, and runs Giving What We Can, 80,000 Hours and the Global Priorities Project in addition to building a community of effective altruists.

At McKinsey, I developed strategy for leading European public sector providers of services in health and social care, and helped to implement large-scale change programmes in local areas serving more than 2 million people.

Before McKinsey, I was on the team that set up 80,000 Hours – a social enterprise which helps people have a meaningful ethical career which now reaches over 1 million people a year, raised over $5 million in funding, and been featured by the Washington Post, the BBC, TED, and NPR among others.