Gabriel Ilharco is a researcher in artificial intelligence with experience in software engineering and applied machine learning. He has worked at organizations including Google and xAI and is currently a member of the Meta Superintelligence Team. ^[2]

Education

Ilharco attended the Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA) in Brazil, where he completed a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering in 2017 and subsequently earned a Master of Science in Electronic and Computer Engineering from the same institution in 2018. During this period, his research was centered on artificial intelligence. He later moved to the United States to pursue doctoral studies at the University of Washington, where he was awarded a PhD in Computer Science and Engineering in 2024. ^{[2] [4]}

Career

Ilharco began his professional career with a series of internships at major technology companies while completing his education. His first role was as a software engineering intern at Microsoft in early 2017, where he contributed to hyperscale compute initiatives. Later that same year, he interned at Google. In 2018, Ilharco returned to Microsoft for another internship, this time with a focus on improving the efficiency of Azure compute services. He followed this with an additional software engineering internship at Google before being accepted into the company's AI Residency program, where he worked from 2018 to 2019.

While pursuing his PhD at the University of Washington, Ilharco continued to engage with the industry, holding research intern positions at Google during the summers of 2020 and 2021. Upon completing his doctorate in 2024, he joined the technical staff at xAI, a company specializing in artificial intelligence. After working there until 2025, he transitioned to a new role as an AI research scientist on the Meta Superintelligence Team. ^{[2] [5]}

Presentations

Artificial Intelligence

In a TEDx talk from 2018, Ilharco discussed the significant impact of artificial intelligence, framing it as the fourth industrial revolution. He highlighted how AI was already integrated into everyday life, offering examples such as its use in comedy and in healthcare, where it aids in diagnosing breast cancer through image analysis. Ilharco emphasized the rapid technological advancements since the 1940s, noting that the growth of AI mirrored historical technological shifts. He pointed out the challenges society faced in fully grasping the profound implications of these changes, which were occurring at an increasing pace, fundamentally altering work and energy production worldwide. ^[1]