On the present setting of the work.
The contemporary study of intelligence (biological, artificial, and collective) has expanded considerably across the past decade; the institutions that ought to hold it together have not, on the whole, kept pace. The work of this organisation is, in part, to attend to that.
What the institution exists to do.
Our work, broadly conceived, spans artificial intelligence and machine learning; neuroscience and cognitive science; robotics, biocomputation and the formal study of complex systems; psychology, linguistics and the behavioural sciences; mathematics, theory and information. Within this corpus we are concerned, principally, with the questions that sit between disciplines: those that, in our experience, evolve faster than the societies organised to address them; those that suffer disproportionately from inconsistent vocabulary or methodology; and those that require new conceptual frameworks before they can be addressed with any seriousness. They are, by their nature, the questions least well served by any single field and frequently the most consequential.
Our principal instruments are conferences and scientific meetings; seminar groups; an ambassador programme; a fellowship; and a small number of public-facing media projects. The aim, in each case, is to convene the relevant participants in person where possible and in correspondence otherwise and to examine how intelligent systems are built, interpreted and governed.
Thinking About Thinking does not fund research projects and awards no grants. Our role, more modestly, is to construct the shared intellectual infrastructure that, in our view, allows serious work to proceed: spaces for careful inquiry; venues for rigorous exchange; and a standing community to which contributors may, year after year, return.
Interdisciplinary in substance. Not, on closer inspection, in presentation.
Dr Ruairidh Battleday
Dr Ruairidh Battleday is a cognitive scientist, AI researcher and founder working at the intersection of artificial intelligence, neuroscience and mathematics.
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Dr James Whittington
Dr James Whittington is a computational neuroscientist and AI researcher working at the intersection of neuroscience, artificial intelligence and mathematics.
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AE Global Summit 2026 · Open Problems for AI
The Annual Meeting of Thinking About Thinking. Three days. Researchers, engineers, founders, investors and policymakers convened around the open problems of artificial intelligence: research, infrastructure, application, governance.
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7th International Conference on the Mathematics of Neuroscience and AI
Our peer-reviewed scientific conference. Submission-led, selective, oriented toward open problems and rigorous exchange across neuroscience, machine learning, applied mathematics and the foundations of intelligence.
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Conferences
Two flagship gatherings. The AE Global Summit is our Annual Meeting, three days in London on Open Problems for AI: research, infrastructure, application and governance. The International Conference on the Mathematics of Neuroscience and AI is our peer-reviewed scientific conference, on the biological, mathematical and computational foundations of intelligence.
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Fellowship
The standing society of Thinking About Thinking; fellows and ambassadors distributed across more than 200 cities. The Fellowship is invitation-only. The Ambassador Programme, an open application route for students and early-career researchers, is the route by which most contributors first encounter the institution.
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Seminar Groups
Online, discussion-led sessions at which researchers and practitioners present work in progress, methodologies and applications. Topics span artificial intelligence, neuroscience, cognitive science, computational linguistics, computer vision, robotics and information theory.
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Recordings
Recorded talks, panels and seminar sessions from across the institution's events. Maintained, more modestly, as the long memory of the work and as a route in for those who could not attend the original session.
Explore →Artificial Intelligence
How learning systems generalise and how they fail.
Enter →Neuroscience
The computational principles of perception, memory and behaviour, drawn from the brains that exhibit them.
Enter →Cognitive Science & Psychology
Mental representations, cognitive mechanisms and behaviour and what we are to make of them.
Enter →Robotics
Intelligence under the constraints of the physical world.
Enter →Mathematics & Theory
The formal structures that govern learning, generalisation and inference.
Enter →Biology & Complex Systems
Intelligence as an emergent property of living and adaptive systems.
Enter →Biocomputation
The brain as a device for computation, broadly conceived.
Enter →Representational Alignment
How biological and artificial systems represent the world and what happens when their representations diverge.
Enter →Activities & Programmes
- I.AE Global Summit · Open Problems for AIA flagship conference on the open problems of artificial intelligence in research, startup and applications. London, 25-27 November 2026.Enter →
- II.Annual ConferenceAn interdisciplinary scientific conference on the foundations of intelligence; submission-led, peer-reviewed and oriented toward open problems. Villa Wolkonsky, Rome, 9-12 June 2026.Enter →
- III.Seminar GroupsOnline, discussion-led sessions for sustained interdisciplinary exchange. Launching 2026.Enter →
- IV.FellowshipThe standing society of fellows and ambassadors. Admission by application or invitation.Enter →
Three ways in.
The Ambassador Programme is the principal route by which most contributors first encounter the institution; the Fellowship, the long walk in; patronage, the means by which the whole is sustained.