The six tracks

Start here

Fundamentals

For

New members, and anyone coming to AI for the first time

Cadence

Weekly

Session

45 to 60 minutes

Leads

Maxwell Dodson, Utkarsh Singh

No machine learning background needed. How these systems are trained, how they fail, and what people are doing about it.

• Completion requires attending 80% of sessions.
• Ends with a capstone discussion that helps place you into your next track.

Singularity Reading Club

For

Open to every member and to non-members, undergraduate and graduate

Leads

Evan Coats

Open discussions and debate on sci-fi, philosophy, and technology. Self-reference and incompleteness, machines that build machines, dark forests, and the forecasts that put a date on all of it.

• The list runs from popular science to graduate-level texts.

On the list

• Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, and StrategiesNick Bostrom
• Theory of Self-Reproducing AutomataJohn von Neumann
• The AI 2027 forecast

Join the Discord and opt in to Singularity Club announcements for the next reading, the rest of the list, and to put a title on it yourself.

Research Fellowship

For

Application-based, with prior programming experience

Cadence

Weekly

Session

60 minutes

Leads

Advait Yadav, Daniel Elliott, Evan Coats, Himnish Hunma, Mithil Salunkhe

Technical and project-based. You pick a question, we supply compute and a mentor, and you finish with a real project or paper.

• Week 1 is an initial screening plus a project proposal, so members can decide whether to team up.
• Weekly meetings to share progress, ask questions of the cohort, and set next week's goals.
• Groups may pivot their goals up to week 7 with sufficient explanation and approval.
• Members present their work to the club at the end of the semester and aim to submit it for external review.

Policy Reading Group

For

Member tier and above, selective by interest

Cadence

Weekly to biweekly

Leads

Sahib Bedi, Elizabeth Vollentine

AI governance and regulation, from Illinois state developments up to international coordination. No tech background needed.

Workshops

For

Open to all members, and to non-members

Cadence

Monthly

Leads

Evan Coats

Hands-on afternoons through the semester. Laptops out, nothing to sign up for.

• Planned for this semester: AI x biosecurity, self-modifying and recursive AI models, and reinforcement learning.

Speakers & Socials

For

All members

Cadence

Monthly

Session

60 minutes

The club's monthly general meeting. Researchers from Illinois and outside it, talking about what they actually work on, plus dinners and game nights.

• Board game nights and a debate party through the semester.