# John Schulman

John Schulman is introduced as Thinking Machines' chief scientist in the September 2026 Dwarkesh panel on AI research.

Type: person. Context selected by Escape Meridian; inclusion is not endorsement.

[Collection](/entities/john-schulman)
[Original website](https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/john-beren-charlie)

## Sources

- [Dwarkesh Podcast](https://www.dwarkesh.com/): Follow extended conversations with researchers, builders and historians into specific claims and disagreements.

## Perspectives

- [Someone still has to decide what a good result means](/perspectives?position=schulman-choosing-objectives) (John Schulman): Schulman separates carrying out experiments from deciding what to seek. Useful research also involves judgment, realistic tasks and objectives that reflect what people actually want.

## Terminal notes

- [When answers get cheaper, choosing the question matters more](/notes/research-panel-choosing-next-question.md): John Schulman, Beren Millidge and Charlie O’Neill largely agree that choosing objectives and the next experiment remains difficult for models. They disagree about how long that limitation lasts and what could overcome it.

## Parallels

- [The answer is right. Was the question?](/parallels?parallel=right-answer-wrong-question): When producing an answer gets cheaper, where does the useful work move?

## Context references

- [https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/john-beren-charlie](https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/john-beren-charlie)

Latest published distillations: [Publications API](/api/pipeline/publications?entity=john-schulman)