Alnur Ismail - Founder, Advisor, Investor Writing by Alnur Ismail on startups, AI, and the intersection between them. https://www.alnurismail.com/ ai 2026-05-15T20:26:03.987Z PaperClub - LLM-as-a-Judge https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/llm-as-a-judge/ 2026-05-15T00:00:00.000Z 2026-05-15T00:00:00.000Z Notes on LLM-as-a-judge, calibration, overconfidence, and why evaluation confidence is harder than it looks We Need a New Security Paradigm for the Agentic World https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/ai-agent-traps-into-product-tests/ 2026-05-11T00:00:00.000Z 2026-05-11T00:00:00.000Z Open source framework designed to test how AI products behave when adversarial content enters their normal workflow Poisoning AI Agents https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/ai-agent-poison/ 2026-04-08T00:00:00.000Z 2026-04-08T00:00:00.000Z Manipulating, deceiving, and exploiting agents PaperClub - Learning as Compilation https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/experience-reflect-consolidate/ 2026-03-16T00:00:00.000Z 2026-03-16T00:00:00.000Z Read a few papers around the reflection loop. Action ⟶ Dispatch ⟶ Execute https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/action-dispatch-execute/ 2026-02-19T00:00:00.000Z 2026-02-19T00:00:00.000Z Realizing dispatch is not optional in tool calling systems Structured Tooling for Sandboxed Agents https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/mystro-sandboxing-tooling/ 2026-02-10T00:00:00.000Z 2026-02-10T00:00:00.000Z Moving execution into a sandbox and rethinking tool interaction and validation GEPA in the Loop https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/mystro-gepa-run/ 2026-02-05T00:00:00.000Z 2026-02-05T00:00:00.000Z Integrating GEPA into the agentic loop Evolutionary Prompt Optimization & Bootstrapped Coding Agents https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/prompt-optimization/ 2026-01-28T00:00:00.000Z 2026-01-28T00:00:00.000Z Building a system for evolutionary prompt optimization in agentic coding Vectors Over Tokens for Non-Invasive BCI https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/vectors-not-tokens-for-bci/ 2026-01-16T00:00:00.000Z 2026-01-16T00:00:00.000Z Exploring non-invasive BCI that goes beyond backprop Dissecting JEPA https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/ablation-jepa-standalone/ 2025-12-12T00:00:00.000Z 2025-12-12T00:00:00.000Z Went deep down the rabit hole to validate what parts of the model work and don't Did JEPA Learn Anything? https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/validating-jepa-standalone/ 2025-12-09T00:00:00.000Z 2025-12-09T00:00:00.000Z Trained a JEPA model and shifted focus to validating it JEPA Valence Standalone Experiment https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/jepa-valence-policy-standalone/ 2025-12-04T00:00:00.000Z 2025-12-04T00:00:00.000Z Designing an experiment to validate if JEPA can actually learn a representation A (attempted) JEPA Valence Policy https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/jepa-valence-policy/ 2025-12-01T00:00:00.000Z 2025-12-01T00:00:00.000Z Created a policy using a JEPA world model that doesn't work very well Paper Club - Intrinsic Motivation For RL https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/paper-club-curiosity/ 2025-11-26T00:00:00.000Z 2025-11-26T00:00:00.000Z Read a few papers on intrinsic motivation Greed Isn't a Good Policy https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/stochastic-policy-cma-es/ 2025-11-24T00:00:00.000Z 2025-11-24T00:00:00.000Z Changing the policy to use probabilities solved the observed action space collapse Reward Shaping Bitter Lesson https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/reward-shaping-bitter-lesson/ 2025-11-20T00:00:00.000Z 2025-11-20T00:00:00.000Z Introducing a more complex action space lead to bitter lesson Multilayer CMA-ES https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/multilayer-cma/ 2025-11-14T00:00:00.000Z 2025-11-14T00:00:00.000Z Understanding how to structure a multilayer CMA-ES network A Learned CMA-ES Policy to Survive https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/cmaes-policy/ 2025-10-31T00:00:00.000Z 2025-10-31T00:00:00.000Z Understanding the structure of a CMA-ES policy and training loop implementation CMA ES for Agent Training https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/cma-es-for-agent-training/ 2025-10-28T00:00:00.000Z 2025-10-28T00:00:00.000Z Applying CMA-ES to optimize agent behavior through parameter search CMA-ES Covariance Ellipse https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/cma-es-cov-ellipse/ 2025-10-27T00:00:00.000Z 2025-10-27T00:00:00.000Z Visualizing CMA-ES search behavior and understanding step size Covariance Matrix and Distribution https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/covariance-matrix-and-distribution/ 2025-10-24T00:00:00.000Z 2025-10-24T00:00:00.000Z Understanding CMA-ES, NES, and multivariate Gaussian concepts Learning Without Vision https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/learning-without-vision/ 2025-10-22T00:00:00.000Z 2025-10-22T00:00:00.000Z Designing curiosity loops for simple survival-based agents Evolutionary Strategies https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/evo-strats/ 2025-10-21T00:00:00.000Z 2025-10-21T00:00:00.000Z Exploring neuroevolution, curiosity, and the biological roots of learning Causal World Models Overview https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/causal-world-models-overview/ 2025-09-08T00:00:00.000Z 2025-09-08T00:00:00.000Z Exploring causal reasoning and world models in AI Latent Space in AI https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/latent-space-in-ai/ 2025-07-23T00:00:00.000Z 2025-07-23T00:00:00.000Z Thinking through what latent space means and how it connects to representation learning Text Similarity Approaches https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/text-similarity-approaches/ 2025-06-11T00:00:00.000Z 2025-06-11T00:00:00.000Z Exploring ASR model confidence and similarity scoring methods Understanding Latent Space https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/understanding-latent-space/ 2025-06-10T00:00:00.000Z 2025-06-10T00:00:00.000Z Exploring methods to visualize and analyze latent spaces in VAEs and JEPA Encoder Neural Network Explanation https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/encoder-neural-network-explanation/ 2025-02-21T00:00:00.000Z 2025-02-21T00:00:00.000Z Clarifying how encoders work and how to structure them for JEPA Masking Strategies for JEPA https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/masking-strategies-for-jepa/ 2025-02-19T00:00:00.000Z 2025-02-19T00:00:00.000Z Understanding deterministic masking and patching for JEPA datasets JEPA GTA5 World Generation https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/jepa-gta5-world-generation/ 2025-02-18T00:00:00.000Z 2025-02-18T00:00:00.000Z Applying JEPA to generate GTA5-like worlds from frame data Normalization in ML Explained https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/normalization-in-ml-explained/ 2025-01-31T00:00:00.000Z 2025-01-31T00:00:00.000Z Understanding integration, PDFs, and normalization in ML Disentangled VAE Resources https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/disentangled-vae-resources/ 2025-01-28T00:00:00.000Z 2025-01-28T00:00:00.000Z Finding research papers and resources for improving disentanglement in VAEs Dynamic VAE Layer Creation https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/dynamic-vae-layer-creation/ 2025-01-22T00:00:00.000Z 2025-01-22T00:00:00.000Z Building encoder and decoder layers dynamically based on input parameters Latent Space Rotation VAE https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/latent-space-rotation-vae/ 2025-01-22T00:00:00.000Z 2025-01-22T00:00:00.000Z Exploring how to navigate or rotate within a VAE latent space High Val Loss Diagnosis https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/high-val-loss-diagnosis/ 2025-01-16T00:00:00.000Z 2025-01-16T00:00:00.000Z Understanding why validation loss is high when training a VAE and what KLD really means VAE RGB Importance https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/vae-rgb-importance/ 2025-01-16T00:00:00.000Z 2025-01-16T00:00:00.000Z Debugging color and visualization issues when training VAEs on RGB data Learning VAEs and World Gen https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/learning-vaes-and-projects/ 2025-01-14T00:00:00.000Z 2025-01-14T00:00:00.000Z Starting to learn VAEs and figuring out how to apply them to world generation Approximate Inference Simplified https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/approximate-inference-simplified/ 2025-01-07T00:00:00.000Z 2025-01-07T00:00:00.000Z Breaking down probabilistic models and VAEs to understand inference, ELBO, and KL divergence GQA vs MQA https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/learning-about-emergent/ 2025-01-02T00:00:00.000Z 2025-01-02T00:00:00.000Z Understanding exponential forms and attention variants in transformers Probabilistic Programming https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/probabilistic-programming-learning-plan/ 2024-12-09T00:00:00.000Z 2024-12-09T00:00:00.000Z Building a learning plan for probabilistic programming in AI Novel AI Approaches https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/novel-ai-approaches/ 2024-11-26T00:00:00.000Z 2024-11-26T00:00:00.000Z Looking at new directions in AI that go beyond deep neural networks Understanding State-Space Models https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/understanding-state-space-models/ 2024-10-29T00:00:00.000Z 2024-10-29T00:00:00.000Z Breaking down Mamba’s state equations and how they relate to ML model outputs Wav2Vec2 Has 12 Layers https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/wav2vec2-has-12-layers/ 2024-07-04T00:00:00.000Z 2024-07-04T00:00:00.000Z Inspecting transformer layers and hidden states in Wav2Vec2 More Epochs Better Inference https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/more-epochs-better-inference/ 2024-06-19T00:00:00.000Z 2024-06-19T00:00:00.000Z Understanding the tradeoffs between epochs, data, and overfitting Agentic Thinking https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/agents-thinking/ 2024-06-13T00:00:00.000Z 2024-06-13T00:00:00.000Z Connecting agentic workflows to tree-of-thought and reinforcement learning ideas SpeechBrain Architecture https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/speechbrain-structure/ 2024-06-13T00:00:00.000Z 2024-06-13T00:00:00.000Z Exploring SpeechBrain's modular system of lobes and recipes for ASR and representation learning. Audio Feature Interpretability https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/audio-feature-inter/ 2024-05-16T00:00:00.000Z 2024-05-16T00:00:00.000Z Investigating how to reconstruct or understand the 768-dim latent features from wav2vec 2.0. Representation Learning in wav2vec Models https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/rep-learning-in-wav2vec/ 2024-05-16T00:00:00.000Z 2024-05-16T00:00:00.000Z Exploring how wav2vec 2.0 and vq‑wav2vec learn speech representations via self‑supervised objectives. Phoneme-level ASR models https://www.alnurismail.com/posts/phoneme-models/ 2024-05-02T00:00:00.000Z 2024-05-02T00:00:00.000Z Evaluating SpeechBrain's support for phoneme-level ASR and model discovery challenges.