PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Naftali Tishby

Also known as נפתלי תשבי, Tali Tishby

Naftali Tishby was a computer scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and he proposed that deep learning is an information bottleneck procedure. He co-wrote the 2000 arXiv paper The information bottleneck method with Fernando Pereira and William Bialek. From 1985 to 1991 he was a research staff member at MIT and Bell Labs. In March 2017 he and Ravid Shwartz-Ziv posted Opening the Black Box of Deep Neural Networks via Information on arXiv. He died in 2021 in Jerusalem at the age of 68.

Works
312
Citations
17,391
h-index
52

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 15 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1952

    Born to a Kabbalah researcher

    He is born in 1952 to Yeshaya Tishby, a researcher of Kabbalah and Jewish thought.

  2. 1980

    An Israel Defense Prize

    He receives the Israel Defense Prize in 1980, the year his IDF service ends.

  3. 1985–1991

    Research at MIT and Bell Labs

    He earns a PhD in theoretical physics from the Hebrew University in 1985. He works as a research staff member at MIT and Bell Labs until 1991.

  4. 1992–1997

    Senior lecturer at Hebrew University

    He becomes a senior lecturer in computer science at the Hebrew University in 1992 and an associate professor in 1997.

  5. 2000

    The information bottleneck method

    He co-writes The information bottleneck method with Fernando Pereira and William Bialek, posted to arXiv in April 2000.

  6. 2015

    Deep learning as a bottleneck

    In 2015 he and his student Noga Zaslavsky hypothesize that deep learning is an information bottleneck procedure that compresses noisy data.

  7. 2017

    Opening the black box

    In March 2017 he and Ravid Shwartz-Ziv post Opening the Black Box of Deep Neural Networks via Information on arXiv. Their experiments reveal how the squeezing procedure happens during deep learning.

  8. 2021

    Death in Jerusalem

    He dies in 2021 in Jerusalem at the age of 68.

Sources and credits

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  1. Naftali Tishby - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 15 October 2026.
  2. Naftali Tishby simons.berkeley.edu. Checked 15 October 2026.
  3. [physics/0004057] The information bottleneck method arxiv.org. Checked 15 October 2026.
  4. New Theory Cracks Open the Black Box of Deep Learning | Quanta Magazine quantamagazine.org. Checked 15 October 2026.
  5. [1703.00810] Opening the Black Box of Deep Neural Networks via Information arxiv.org. Checked 15 October 2026.
  6. Prof. Naftali Tishby passes away at the age of 68 - ELSC | Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences elsc.huji.ac.il. Checked 15 October 2026.