Vikash Mansinghka

Vikash Mansinghka is a principal research scientist in MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, where he leads the Probabilistic Computing Project. His group is building a new generation of probabilistic computing systems that integrate probability and randomness into the basic building blocks of software and hardware. They have discovered that this approach leads to surprising new AI capabilities, and are exploring them via a combination of academic research and entrepreneurship. They also research the mathematical foundations of probabilistic computation, making their work available via open-source software, workshops, and online educational materials. Additionally, they collaborate with industry and non-profits. Mansinghka co-founded two startups: Prior Knowledge and Empirical Systems, later acquired by Salesforce and Tableau, respectively. He earned a PhD from MIT.