Sepp Hochreiter

Sepp Hochreiter is a Professor at Johannes Kepler University Linz since 2006, where he heads the Institute for Machine Learning and the LIT AI Lab. He also serves as director of the private research institute IARAI. As a pioneer in Deep Learning, he discovered the vanishing/exploding gradients problem and invented the Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) architecture.

Professor Hochreiter is an active member of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS) Board. His research focuses on practical AI applications while critically examining the societal implications of artificial intelligence. He has been vocal about redirecting attention from speculative existential risks of AI toward addressing concrete, immediate challenges such as algorithmic bias, privacy violations, environmental impact, and workforce displacement.

His recent publications demonstrate a consistent focus on balancing AI development with responsible implementation, emphasizing regulation and collaboration between technical experts and impacted societal sectors. Hochreiter advocates for addressing documented challenges of current AI systems rather than hypothetical superintelligence scenarios.

Hochreiter collaborates with leading AI researchers worldwide through ELLIS, contributing to policy discussions about AI governance and ethics. His work bridges technical AI development with practical societal considerations, making him a significant voice in contemporary AI discourse.