Location Palo Alto, CA

Description Amazon is looking for talented Postdoctoral Scientists to join our Stores Foundational AI team for a one-year, full-time research position.

The Stores Foundational AI team builds foundation models for multiple Amazon entities, such as ASIN, customer, seller and brand. These foundation models are used in downstream applications by various partner teams in Stores. Our team also invest in building foundation model for image generation, optimized for product image generation. We leverage the latest development to create our solutions and innovate to push state of the art.

The Postdoc is expected to conduct research and build state-of-the-art algorithms in video understanding and representation learning in the era of LLMs. Specifically, Designing efficient algorithms to learn accurate representations for videos. Building extensive video understanding capabilities including various content classification tasks. Designing algorithms that can generate high-quality videos from set of product images. Improve the quality of our foundation models along the following dimensions: robustness, interpretability, fairness, sustainability, and privacy.

Redmond, Washington, United States

Overview Within AI Platform, the Cognitive Services team empowers developers and data scientists around the world and of all skill levels to easily add AI capabilities to their apps. #aiplatform

We are looking for a Research Scientist with a background in Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing and/or Artificial Intelligence, including topics like layout analysis, chart understanding, multi-page multi-document question answering, novel ways of leveraging large language models for document understanding and solving problems inherent to large language models (grounding, retrieval-based generation, etc.). Familiarity with modern large language models is a plus, but not required.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Responsibilities Your responsibilities will include:

Conduct pioneering research to propel the state-of-the-art in various tasks in document understanding. Work closely with fellow Research Scientists and Product Engineering teams to translate research outcomes into practical solutions. Provide expertise and support to the engineering team on various challenges, fostering collaboration between research and practical application. Take charge of the research agenda from problem definition to algorithm and model development.

Vancouver

Who we are Established in 2017, Wayve is a leader in autonomous vehicle technology, driven by breakthroughs in Embodied AI. Our intelligent, mapless, and hardware-agnostic technologies empower vehicles to navigate complex environments effortlessly. Supported by prominent investors, Wayve is advancing the transition from assisted to fully automated driving, making transportation safer, more efficient, and universally accessible. Join our world-class, multinational team of engineers and researchers as we push the boundaries of frontier AI and autonomous driving, creating impactful technologies and products on a global scale

We are seeking an experienced researcher to be a founding member of our Vancouver team! We are prioritising someone with experience leading projects in AI applied to autonomous driving or similar robotics or decision-making domains, inclusive, but not limited to the following specific areas: Foundation models for robotics or embodied AI Model-free and model-based reinforcement learning Offline reinforcement learning Large language models Planning with learned models, model predictive control and tree search Imitation learning, inverse reinforcement learning and causal inference Learned agent models: behavioural, oral and physical models of cars, people, and other dynamic agents

Challenges you will own You'll be working on some of the world's hardest problems, and able to attack them in new ways. You'll be a technical leader within our diverse, cross-disciplinary team, helping teach our robots how to drive safely and comfortably in complex real-world environments. This encompasses many aspects of research across perception, prediction, planning, and control, including:

Actively contributing to the Science’s technical leadership community, inclusive of proposing new projects, organising their work, and delivering substantial impact across Wayve. Leveraging our large, rich, and diverse sources of real-world driving data Architecting our models to best employ the latest advances in foundation models, transformers, world models, etc, evaluating and incorporating state-of-the-art techniques into our workflows Investigating learning algorithms to use (e.g. reinforcement learning, behavioural cloning) Leveraging simulation for controlled experimental insight, training data augmentation, and re-simulation Scaling models efficiently across data, model size, and compute, while maintaining efficient deployment on the car Collaborating with cross-functional, international teams to integrate research findings into scalable, production-level solutions Potentially contributing to academic publications for top-tier conferences like NeurIPS, CVPR, ICRA, ICLR, CoRL etc. working in a world-class team, contributing to the scientific community and establishing Wayve as a leader in the field

What you will bring to Wayve Proven track record of research in one or more of the topics above demonstrated through deployed applications or publications. Experience leading a research agenda aligned with larger organisation or company goals Strong programming skills in Python, with experience in deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch, numpy, pandas, etc. Experience bringing a machine learning research concept through the full ML development cycle Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to work independently as well as in a team environment. Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively in a fast-paced, innovative, interdisciplinary team environment. Experience bringing an ML research concept through to production and at scale PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field

What we offer you The chance to be part of a truly mission driven organisation and an opportunity to shape the future of autonomous driving. Unlike our competitors, Wayve is still relatively small and nimble, giving you the chance to make a huge impact

Natick, MA, United States

The Company Cognex is a global leader in the exciting and growing field of machine vision.

The Team: Vision Algorithms, Advanced Vision Technology This position is in the Vision Algorithms Team of Advanced Vision Technology group, which is responsible for designing and developing the most sophisticated machine vision tools in the world. We combine custom hardware, specialized lighting, optics, and world-class vision algorithms to create software systems that are used to analyze imagery (intensity, color, density, Z-data, ID barcodes, etc.), to detect, identify and localize objects, to make measurements, to inspect for defects, and to read encoded data. Technology development is critical to the overall business to expand areas of application, improve performance, discover new algorithms, and to make use of new hardware and processing power. Engineers in this group typically have experience with image analysis, machine vision, or signal processing.

Job Summary: The Vision Algorithms team is looking for well-rounded, intelligent, creative, and motivated summer or fall intern with a passion for results! You will work with our senior engineers and technical leads on projects that advance our software development infrastructure and enhance our key technologies and customer experience. You will get mentorship on tackling technical challenges and opportunities to build a solid foundation for your career in Software Engineering, or Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence.

Essential Functions: - Prototype and develop Vision (2D and ID) applications on top of Cognex products and technology. - Build internal tools or automated tests that can be used in software development or testing. - Understand our products and contribute to creating optimal solutions for customer applications in the automation industry. - High energy and motivated learner. Creative, motivated, and looking to work hard for a fast-moving company. - Strong analytical and problem-solving skills. - Strong programming skills in both C/C++ and Python are required. - Solid understanding of machine learning (ML) fundamentals and experience with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or PyTorch required. - Demonstrated projects or internships in AI/ML domain during academic or professional tenure is highly desirable. - Experience with embedded systems, Linux systems, vision/image-processing and optics all valued. - Background in 2D vision, 3D camera calibration & multi camera systems are preferred.

Minimum education and work experience required: Pursuing a MS, or Ph.D. from a top engineering school in EE, CS, or equivalent.

If you would like to meet the hiring manager at CVPR to discuss this opportunity, please email ahmed.elbarkouky@cognex.com

London

Who we are Established in 2017, Wayve is a leader in autonomous vehicle technology, driven by breakthroughs in Embodied AI. Our intelligent, mapless, and hardware-agnostic technologies empower vehicles to navigate complex environments effortlessly.

Supported by prominent investors, Wayve is advancing the transition from assisted to fully automated driving, making transportation safer, more efficient, and universally accessible. Join our world-class, multinational team of engineers and researchers as we push the boundaries of frontier AI and autonomous driving, creating impactful technologies and products on a global scale

Where you will have an impact We're looking for an experienced Applied Scientist with expertise in Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs) and Gaussian Splatting to join our Vision & Graphics team and advance our innovative neural simulator, Ghost Gym. This role is central to improving Ghost Gym's capabilities, utilizing state-of-the-art neural rendering techniques to craft photorealistic 4D worlds. You'll be at the forefront of developing and applying groundbreaking research to generate thousands of simulated scenarios. These scenarios are critical for training, testing, and debugging our end-to-end AI driving models, contributing significantly to the creation of safe and reliable AI driving technology. Your work will focus on improving the efficiency, realism, and dynamism of our simulations, especially for dynamic and outdoor environments, pushing the limits of current photorealistic visualization technologies.

Challenges you will own Conducting cutting-edge research in NeRFs, Gaussian splatting, and related technologies, with a focus on solving real-world challenges in 3D rendering Developing and implementing algorithms for efficient, high-quality 3D scene reconstruction and rendering, particularly for dynamic and outdoor environments Collaborating with cross-functional teams to integrate research findings into scalable, production-level solutions Staying abreast of the latest developments in the field, evaluating and incorporating state-of-the-art techniques into our workflows Potentially finding opportunities to publish research findings in top-tier journals and conferences, contributing to the scientific community and establishing Wayve as a leader in the field What you will bring to Wayve Essential Proven track record of research in NeRFs, Gaussian splatting, or closely related areas, demonstrated through publications or deployed applications Strong programming skills in Python with experience in deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch Solid foundation in mathematics and physics underlying 3D graphics and rendering techniques Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to work independently as well as in a team environment Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively in a fast-paced, innovative, interdisciplinary team environment

Desirable Experience with dynamic scene reconstruction and rendering, particularly in outdoor environments Familiarity with parallel computing, GPU programming, and optimization techniques PhD or MSc in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field, with a focus on computer graphics, computer vision, or machine learning What we offer you The chance to be part of a truly mission driven organisation and an opportunity to shape the future of autonomous driving. Unlike our competitors, Wayve is still relatively small and nimble, giving you the chance to make a huge impact Competitive compensation and benefits A dynamic and fast-paced work environment in which you will grow every day - learning on the job, from the brightest minds in our space, and with support for more formal learning opportunities too A culture that is ego-free, respectful and welcoming (of you and your dog) - we even eat lunch together every day

Gothenburg, Sweden

This fully-funded PhD position offers an opportunity to delve into the area of geometric deep learning within the broader landscape of machine learning and 3D computer vision. As a candidate, you'll have the chance to develop theoretical concepts and innovative methodologies while contributing to real-world imaging applications. Moreover, you will enjoy working in a diverse, collaborative, supportive and internationally recognized environment.

The PhD project centers on understanding and improving deep learning methods for 3D scene analysis and 3D generative diffusion models. We aim to explore new ways of encoding symmetries in deep learning models in order to scale up computations, a necessity for realizing truly 3D generative models for general scenes. We aim to explore the application of these models in key problems involving novel view synthesis and self-supervised learning.

If you are interested and present at CVPR, then feel free to reach out to Prof. Fredrik Kahl, head of the Computer Vision Group.

A postdoctoral position is available in Harvard Ophthalmology Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab (https://ophai.hms.harvard.edu) under the supervision of Dr. Mengyu Wang (https://ophai.hms.harvard.edu/team/dr-wang/) at Schepens Eye Research Institute of Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical School. The start date is flexible, with a preference for candidates capable of starting in August or September 2024. The initial appointment will be for one year with the possibility of extension. Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. Salary for the postdoctoral fellow will follow the NIH guideline commensurate with years of postdoctoral research experience.

In the course of this interdisciplinary project, the postdoc will collaborate with a team of world-class scientists and clinicians with backgrounds in visual psychophysics, engineering, biostatistics, computer science, and ophthalmology. The postdoc will work on developing statistical and machine learning models to improve the diagnosis and prognosis of common eye diseases such as glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy. The postdoc will have access to abundant resources for education, career development and research both from the Harvard hospital campus and Harvard University campus. More than half of our postdocs secured a faculty position after their time in our lab.

For our data resources, we have about 3 million 2D fundus photos and more than 1 million 3D optical coherence tomography scans. Please check http://ophai.hms.harvard.edu/data for more details. For our GPU resources, we have 22 in-house GPUs in total including 8 80-GB Nvidia H100 GPUs, 10 48-GB Nvidia RTX A6000 GPUs, and 4 Nvidia RTX 6000 GPUs. Please check http://ophai.hms.harvard.edu/computing for more details. Our recent research has been published in ICCV 2023, ICLR 2024, CVPR 2024, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, and Medical Image Analysis. Please check https://github.com/Harvard-Ophthalmology-AI-Lab for more details.

The successful applicant will:

1. possess or be on track to complete a PhD or MD with background in computer science, mathematics, computational science, statistics, machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, image processing, biomedical engineering, bioinformatics, visual science and ophthalmology or a related field. Fluency in written and spoken English is essential.

2. have strong programming skills (Python, R, MATLAB, C++, etc.) and in-depth understanding of statistics and machine learning. Experience with Linux clusters is a plus.

3. have a strong and productive publication record.

4. have a strong work ethic and time management skills along with the ability to work independently and within a multidisciplinary team as required.

Your application should include:

1. curriculum vitae

2. statement of past research accomplishments, career goal and how this position will help you achieve your goals

3. Two representative publications

4. contact information for three references

The application should be sent to Mengyu Wang via email (mengyu_wang at meei.harvard.edu) with subject “Postdoctoral Application in Harvard Ophthalmology AI Lab".

Location Madrid, ESP

Description Amazon's International Technology org in EU (EU INTech) is creating new ways for Amazon customers discovering Amazon catalog through new and innovative Customer experiences. Our vision is to provide the most relevant content and CX for their shopping mission. We are responsible for building the software and machine learning models to surface high quality and relevant content to the Amazon customers worldwide across the site.

The team, mainly located in Madrid Technical Hub, London and Luxembourg, comprises Software Developer and ML Engineers, Applied Scientists, Product Managers, Technical Product Managers and UX Designers who are experts on several areas of ranking, computer vision, recommendations systems, Search as well as CX. Are you interested on how the experiences that fuel Catalog and Search are built to scale to customers WW? Are interesting on how we use state of the art AI to generate and provide the most relevant content?

We are looking for Applied Scientists who are passionate to solve highly ambiguous and challenging problems at global scale. You will be responsible for major science challenges for our team, including working with text to image and image to text state of the art models to scale to enable new Customer Experiences WW. You will design, develop, deliver and support a variety of models in collaboration with a variety of roles and partner teams around the world. You will influence scientific direction and best practices and maintain quality on team deliverables.

Location Seattle, WA Palo Alto, CA

Description Amazon’s product search engine is one of the most heavily used services in the world, indexes billions of products, and serves hundreds of millions of customers world-wide. We are working on an AI-first initiative to continue to improve the way we do search through the use of large scale next-generation deep learning techniques. Our goal is to make step function improvements in the use of advanced multi-modal deep-learning models on very large scale datasets, specifically through the use of advanced systems engineering and hardware accelerators. This is a rare opportunity to develop cutting edge Computer Vision and Deep Learning technologies and apply them to a problem of this magnitude. Some exciting questions that we expect to answer over the next few years include: * How can multi-modal inputs in deep-learning models help us deliver delightful shopping experiences to millions of Amazon customers? * Can combining multi-modal data and very large scale deep-learning models help us provide a step-function improvement to the overall model understanding and reasoning capabilities? We are looking for exceptional scientists who are passionate about innovation and impact, and want to work in a team with a startup culture within a larger organization.

ASML US, including its affiliates and subsidiaries, bring together the most creative minds in science and technology to develop lithography machines that are key to producing faster, cheaper, more energy-efficient microchips. We design, develop, integrate, market and service these advanced machines, which enable our customers - the world’s leading chipmakers - to reduce the size and increase the functionality of their microchips, which in turn leads to smaller, more powerful consumer electronics. Our headquarters are in Veldhoven, Netherlands and we have 18 office locations around the United States including main offices in Chandler, Arizona, San Jose and San Diego, California, Wilton, Connecticut, and Hillsboro, Oregon.

The Advanced Development Center at ASML in Wilton, Connecticut is seeking an Optical Data Analyst with expertise processing of images for metrology process development of ultra-high precision optics and ceramics. The Advanced Development Center (ADC) is a multi-disciplinary group of engineers and scientists focused on developing learning loop solutions, proto-typing of next generation wafer and reticle clamping systems and industrialization of proto-types that meet the system performance requirements.

Role and Responsibilities The main job function is to develop image processing, data analysis and machine learning algorithm and software to aid in development of wafer and reticle clamping systems to solve challenging engineering problems associated with achieving nanometer (nm) scale precision. You will be part of the larger Development and Engineering (DE) sector – where the design and engineering of ASML products happens.

As an Optical Data Analyst, you will: Develop/improve image processing algorithm to extract nm level information from scientific imaging equipment (e.g. interferometer, SEM, AFM, etc.) Integrate algorithms into image processing software package for analysis and process development cycles for engineering and manufacturing users Maintain version controlled software package for multiple product generations Perform software testing to identify application, algorithm and software bugs Validate/verify/regression/unit test software to ensure it meets the business and technical requirements Use machine learning models to predict trends and behaviors relating to lifetime and manufacturing improvements of the product Execute a plan of analysis, software and systems, to mitigate product and process risk and prevent software performance issues Collaborate with the design team in software analysis tool development to find solutions to difficult technical problems in an efficient manner Work with database structures and utilize capabilities Write software scripts to search, analyze and plot data from database Support query code to interrogate data for manufacturing and engineering needs Support image analysis on data and derive conclusions Travel (up to 10%) to Europe, Asia and within the US can be expected

Redmond, Washington, United States

Overview We are seeking skilled and passionate Senior Research Scientist to join our Responsible & Open Ai Research (ROAR) team in Azure Cognitive Services at Redmond, WA.

As a Senior Research Scientist, you will play a key role in advancing Responsible AI approaches to ensure safe releases of the rapidly evolving multimodal, AI models such as GPT-4 Vision, DALL-E, Sora, and beyond, as well as to expand and enhance the Azure AI Content Safety Service.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.

Responsibilities Conduct cutting-edge research to develop Responsible AI definitions, methodologies, algorithms, and models for both measurement and mitigation of multimodal AI risks. Stay abreast of the latest advancements in the field and contribute to the scientific community through publications at top venues. Enable the safe release of multimodal models from OpenAI in Azure OpenAI Service, expand and enhance the Azure AI Content Safety Service with new detection technologies. Develop innovative approaches to address AI safety challenges for diverse customer scenarios. Embody our Culture and Values

Captions is the AI-powered creative studio. Millions of creators around the world have used Captions to make their video content stand out from the pack and we're on a mission to empower the next billion.

Based in NYC, we are a team of ambitious, experienced, and devoted engineers, designers, and marketers. You'll be joining an early team where you'll have an outsized impact on both the product and company's culture.

We’re very fortunate to have some the best investors and entrepreneurs backing us, including Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Uncommon Projects, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, Antoine Martin, Julie Zhuo, Ben Rubin, Jaren Glover, SVAngel, 20VC, Ludlow Ventures, Chapter One, Lenny Rachitsky, and more.

Check out our latest milestone and our recent feature on the TODAY show and the New York Times.

** Please note that all of our roles will require you to be in-person at our NYC HQ (located in Union Square) **

Responsibilities:

Conduct research and develop models to advance the state-of-the-art in generative video technologies, focusing on areas such as video in-painting, super resolution, text-to-video conversion, background removal, and neural background rendering.

Design and develop advanced neural network models tailored for generative video applications, exploring innovative techniques to manipulate and enhance video content for storytelling purposes.

Explore new areas and techniques to enhance video storytelling, including research into novel generative approaches and their applications in video production and editing.

Create tools and systems that leverage machine learning, artificial intelligence, and computational techniques to generate, manipulate, and enhance video content, with a focus on usability and scalability.

Preferred Qualifications:

PhD in computer science or related field or 3+ years of industry experience.

Publication Record: Highly relevant publication history, with a focus on generative video techniques and applications. Ideal candidates will have served as the primary author on these publications.

Video Processing Skills: Strong understanding of video processing techniques, including video compression, motion estimation, and object tracking, with the ability to apply these techniques in generative video applications.

Expertise in Deep Learning: Proficiency in deep learning frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, or similar, with hands-on experience in designing, training, and deploying neural networks for video-related tasks.

Strong understanding of Computer Science fundamentals (algorithms and data structures).

Benefits: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans

Anything you need to do your best work

We’ve done team off-sites to places like Paris, London, Park City, Los Angeles, Upstate NY, and Nashville with more planned in the future.

Captions provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

Please note benefits apply to full time employees only.

Geomagical Labs is a 3D R&D lab, in partnership with IKEA. We create magical mixed-reality experiences for hundreds of millions of users, using computer vision, neural networks, graphics, and computational photography. Last year we launched IKEA Kreativ, and we’re excited for what’s next! We have an opening in our lab for a senior computer vision researcher, with 3D Reconstruction and Deep Learning expertise, to develop and improve the underlying algorithms powering our consumer products. We are looking for highly-motivated, creative, applied researchers with entrepreneurial drive, that are excited about building novel technologies and shipping them all the way to the hands of millions of customers!

Requirements: Ph.D. and 2+ years of experience, or Master's and 6+ years of experience, focused on 3D Computer Vision and Deep Learning. Experience in classical methods for 3D Reconstruction: SfM/SLAM, Multi-view Stereo, RGB-D Fusion. Experience in using Deep Learning for 3D Reconstruction and/or Scene Understanding, having worked in any of: Depth Estimation, Room Layout Estimation, NeRFs, Inverse Rendering, 3D Scene Understanding. Familiarity with Computer Graphics and Computational Photography. Expertise in ML frameworks and libraries, e.g. PyTorch. Highly productive in Python. Ability to architect and implement complex systems at the micro and macro level. Entrepreneurial: Adventurous, self-driven, comfortable under uncertainty, with a desire to make systems work end-to-end. Innovative; with a track record of patents and/or first-authored publications at leading workshops or conferences such as CVPR, ECCV/ICCV, SIGGRAPH, ISMAR, NeurIPS, ICLR etc. Experience in developing technologies that got integrated into products, as well as post-launch performance tracking and shipping improvements. [Bonus] Comfortable with C++.

Benefits: Join a mission-driven R&D lab, strategically backed by an influential global brand. Work in a dynamic team of computer vision, AI, computational photography, AR, graphics, and design professionals, and successful serial entrepreneurs. Opportunity to publish novel and relevant research. Fully remote work available to people living in the USA or Canada. Headquartered in downtown Palo Alto, California --- an easy walk from restaurants, coffee shops and Caltrain commuter rail. The USA base salary for this full-time position ranges from $180,000 to $250,000 determined by location, role, skill, and experience level. Geomagical Labs offers a comprehensive set of benefits, and for qualifying roles, substantial incentive grants, vesting annually.

The Prediction & Behavior ML team is responsible for developing machine-learned models that understand the full scene around our vehicle and forecast the behavior for other agents, our own vehicle’s actions, and for offline applications. To solve these problems we develop deep learning algorithms that can learn behaviors from data and apply them on-vehicle to influence our vehicle’s driving behavior and offline to provide learned models to autonomy simulation and validation. Given the tight integration of behavior forecasting and motion planning, our team necessarily works very closely with the Planner team in the advancement of our overall vehicle behavior. The Prediction & Behavior ML team also works closely with our Perception, Simulation, and Systems Engineering teams on many cross-team initiatives.

Excited to see you at CVPR! We’ll be at booth 1404. Come see us to talk more about roles.

Our team consists of people with diverse software and academic experiences. We work together towards one common goal: integrating the software, you'll help us build into hundreds of millions of vehicles.

As a Research Engineer on our Motion Planning team, you will work collaboratively to improve our models and iterate on novel research directions, sometimes in just days. We're looking for talented engineers who would enjoy applying their skills to deeply complex and novel AI problems. Specifically, you will:

• Apply and extend the Helm proprietary algorithmic toolkit for unsupervised learning and perception problems at scale
• Develop our planner behavior and trajectories in collaboration with software and autonomous vehicle engineers to deploy algorithms on internal and customer vehicle platforms
• Carefully execute the development and maintenance of tools used for deep learning experiments designed to provide new functionality for customers or address relevant corner cases in the system as a whole