Matthew Guzdial
@matthewguz.bsky.social
Associate professor @ University of Alberta and Canada CIFAR AI Chair @ Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute.
Games, machine learning, and creativity | he/him
Games, machine learning, and creativity | he/him
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
And the folks who are actually writing full-time generally only got there after years of day jobs, family support, or both.
The point of sharing this is not to demoralize anyone, but to let emerging writers know they're not failing if they can't make a living off writing alone. Almost no one can.
The point of sharing this is not to demoralize anyone, but to let emerging writers know they're not failing if they can't make a living off writing alone. Almost no one can.
almost every novelist you read who's not from the airport fiction or bestseller sections is working a full on day job, including multi-award winners and absolute legends, or they have a spouse or trust that supports them. virtually across the board. just normalize in your mind that's how it works.
I know we know this, but authors need to get better at talking about how they actually make their money. Stop pretending it's from the books.
November 25, 2025 at 11:24 PM
And the folks who are actually writing full-time generally only got there after years of day jobs, family support, or both.
The point of sharing this is not to demoralize anyone, but to let emerging writers know they're not failing if they can't make a living off writing alone. Almost no one can.
The point of sharing this is not to demoralize anyone, but to let emerging writers know they're not failing if they can't make a living off writing alone. Almost no one can.
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
🚀 Introducing TMLR Beyond PDF!
🎬 This is a new, HTML-based submission format for TMLR, that supports interactive figures and videos, along with the usual LaTeX and images.
🎉 Thanks to TMLR Editors in Chief: Hugo Larochelle, @gautamkamath.com, Naila Murray, Nihar B. Shah, and Laurent Charlin!
🎬 This is a new, HTML-based submission format for TMLR, that supports interactive figures and videos, along with the usual LaTeX and images.
🎉 Thanks to TMLR Editors in Chief: Hugo Larochelle, @gautamkamath.com, Naila Murray, Nihar B. Shah, and Laurent Charlin!
November 25, 2025 at 4:12 PM
🚀 Introducing TMLR Beyond PDF!
🎬 This is a new, HTML-based submission format for TMLR, that supports interactive figures and videos, along with the usual LaTeX and images.
🎉 Thanks to TMLR Editors in Chief: Hugo Larochelle, @gautamkamath.com, Naila Murray, Nihar B. Shah, and Laurent Charlin!
🎬 This is a new, HTML-based submission format for TMLR, that supports interactive figures and videos, along with the usual LaTeX and images.
🎉 Thanks to TMLR Editors in Chief: Hugo Larochelle, @gautamkamath.com, Naila Murray, Nihar B. Shah, and Laurent Charlin!
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
I saw some chat about Arc Raiders' use of AI voice actors recently - I'm probably not going to rerecord the talk I gave at EXAG but I thought I'd drop in a few slides about the idea that you can make generative AI ethical by getting people to sign a piece of paper to say you can use their data.
November 25, 2025 at 1:09 PM
I saw some chat about Arc Raiders' use of AI voice actors recently - I'm probably not going to rerecord the talk I gave at EXAG but I thought I'd drop in a few slides about the idea that you can make generative AI ethical by getting people to sign a piece of paper to say you can use their data.
As usual, I'm impressed with Defunctland's work, but 1.5 hours into this video I'm surprised he hasn't mentioned Jill Fain Lehman once, especially given how frequently the video mentions the men involved. How do you talk about Turtle Talk with Crush and not say her name?
So you made a robot stand up and talk... now what? In this over 4-hour journey, Kevin follows the promise of Disney's Living Character Initiative, an effort to populate Disney theme parks with free-roaming, interactive beings. It was touted as the future. How's it going? Watch here: bit.ly/49C6vng
November 24, 2025 at 4:28 AM
As usual, I'm impressed with Defunctland's work, but 1.5 hours into this video I'm surprised he hasn't mentioned Jill Fain Lehman once, especially given how frequently the video mentions the men involved. How do you talk about Turtle Talk with Crush and not say her name?
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
An unrelated thing from teaching audio & image models side by side: for image models it's nice to use the time dimension for timelapses (below, 30 steps of stable diffusion generating "snowy mountain peaks, abstract painting"). But audio inconveniently already uses the time dimension for itself!
November 22, 2025 at 5:48 PM
An unrelated thing from teaching audio & image models side by side: for image models it's nice to use the time dimension for timelapses (below, 30 steps of stable diffusion generating "snowy mountain peaks, abstract painting"). But audio inconveniently already uses the time dimension for itself!
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
So there you have it, twin study estimates were greatly inflated, and molecular data sets the record straight. I walk through possible counter-arguments, but ultimately the uncomfortable truth is that genes contribute to traits much less than we always thought.
November 21, 2025 at 10:34 PM
So there you have it, twin study estimates were greatly inflated, and molecular data sets the record straight. I walk through possible counter-arguments, but ultimately the uncomfortable truth is that genes contribute to traits much less than we always thought.
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
The theme for #PROCJAM 2025 is:
❄️ ☃️ COLD PLACES ☃️ ❄️
Brr! We selected this theme using a new method: I asked community members to send in theme suggestions, then we turned them into word vectors, found the average, and looked at the words nearest to that! A little bit of unpredictability. 🔮
❄️ ☃️ COLD PLACES ☃️ ❄️
Brr! We selected this theme using a new method: I asked community members to send in theme suggestions, then we turned them into word vectors, found the average, and looked at the words nearest to that! A little bit of unpredictability. 🔮
November 22, 2025 at 12:14 AM
The theme for #PROCJAM 2025 is:
❄️ ☃️ COLD PLACES ☃️ ❄️
Brr! We selected this theme using a new method: I asked community members to send in theme suggestions, then we turned them into word vectors, found the average, and looked at the words nearest to that! A little bit of unpredictability. 🔮
❄️ ☃️ COLD PLACES ☃️ ❄️
Brr! We selected this theme using a new method: I asked community members to send in theme suggestions, then we turned them into word vectors, found the average, and looked at the words nearest to that! A little bit of unpredictability. 🔮
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
📖 Free open-access edition: neuroevolutionbook.com
November 20, 2025 at 7:22 AM
📖 Free open-access edition: neuroevolutionbook.com
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
Excited to announce our book “Neuroevolution: Harnessing Creativity in AI Agent Design” by Sebastian Risi, Yujin Tang, Risto Miikkulainen, and myself. We explore decades of work on evolving intelligent agents and shows how neuroevolution can drive creativity in deep learning, RL, LLMs and AI Agents!
November 20, 2025 at 7:22 AM
Excited to announce our book “Neuroevolution: Harnessing Creativity in AI Agent Design” by Sebastian Risi, Yujin Tang, Risto Miikkulainen, and myself. We explore decades of work on evolving intelligent agents and shows how neuroevolution can drive creativity in deep learning, RL, LLMs and AI Agents!
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
#procjam starts tomorrow! As a reminder: you can bring an old project, you can start early, you can finish late, you can do whatever you want (except use generative AI). Come make something that makes something, and make new friends in our wonderful community too.
PROCJAM - the Procedural Generation Jam - is back for another year! Join us on itch.io this November for another week of making something that makes something - a bskybot, a videogame, a digital artwork, a dice table or something else!
🗓️ Nov 21st - Dec 1st
🔮 itch.io/jam/procjam
🗓️ Nov 21st - Dec 1st
🔮 itch.io/jam/procjam
PROCJAM - The Procedural Generation Jam
A game jam from 2025-11-21 to 2025-12-01 hosted by PROCJAM. Let's Make Something! PROCJAM - the Procedural Generation Jam - is a creative coding jam about making things that make things. This normally...
itch.io
November 20, 2025 at 3:50 PM
#procjam starts tomorrow! As a reminder: you can bring an old project, you can start early, you can finish late, you can do whatever you want (except use generative AI). Come make something that makes something, and make new friends in our wonderful community too.
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
September 6, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
The maximum acceptable level of risk for an "AI-powered toy" targeted at young children is absolutely too low for use of an off-the-shelf commercial LLM to EVER be a reasonable choice. gizmodo.com/ai-powered-t...
AI-Powered Teddy Bear Caught Talking About Sexual Fetishes and Instructing Kids How to Find Knives
OpenAI blocked access for the toymaker following the incidents.
gizmodo.com
November 19, 2025 at 12:31 AM
The maximum acceptable level of risk for an "AI-powered toy" targeted at young children is absolutely too low for use of an off-the-shelf commercial LLM to EVER be a reasonable choice. gizmodo.com/ai-powered-t...
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
Now that I'm done traveling and have slept the requisite amount - I wanted to share how incredible AIIDE was and how amazing the community is. The amount of kind and brilliant people blew my mind. I've been buzzing for a few days on the ideas shared there and am reinvigorated on my research. (1/5)
November 18, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Now that I'm done traveling and have slept the requisite amount - I wanted to share how incredible AIIDE was and how amazing the community is. The amount of kind and brilliant people blew my mind. I've been buzzing for a few days on the ideas shared there and am reinvigorated on my research. (1/5)
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
Oh my!!!
"AI through the experts' eyes" is live on Amazon! Pre-order your copy today! (Arrives September 1, 2026)
www.amazon.com/Through-Expe...
"AI through the experts' eyes" is live on Amazon! Pre-order your copy today! (Arrives September 1, 2026)
www.amazon.com/Through-Expe...
AI Through the Experts’ Eyes: Communicating Complex Ideas (Composition, Literacy, and Culture)
Amazon.com: AI Through the Experts’ Eyes: Communicating Complex Ideas (Composition, Literacy, and Culture): 9780822949053: Gallagher, John: Books
www.amazon.com
November 17, 2025 at 1:13 AM
Oh my!!!
"AI through the experts' eyes" is live on Amazon! Pre-order your copy today! (Arrives September 1, 2026)
www.amazon.com/Through-Expe...
"AI through the experts' eyes" is live on Amazon! Pre-order your copy today! (Arrives September 1, 2026)
www.amazon.com/Through-Expe...
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
Doctor says, 'Dont worry, parser design is simple. Great programmer Kate Compton has written the parser you seek’
November 16, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Doctor says, 'Dont worry, parser design is simple. Great programmer Kate Compton has written the parser you seek’
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
📌 Three new papers at #aiide25 from me:
1. A 'vision' paper about why game design is like procedural design bsky.app/profile/mtrc...
2. A new system for generating mechanics called Pixie bsky.app/profile/mtrc...
3. A big group paper about speedrunning as an AI challenge bsky.app/profile/mtrc...
1. A 'vision' paper about why game design is like procedural design bsky.app/profile/mtrc...
2. A new system for generating mechanics called Pixie bsky.app/profile/mtrc...
3. A big group paper about speedrunning as an AI challenge bsky.app/profile/mtrc...
New Paper: Game Design is Generative Design. Designing a procedural generator and designing a game share a lot of skills, problems and philosophies, even if we think of them as distinct. I try to connect them here, for good!
Read here: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AI...
Read here: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AI...
November 16, 2025 at 4:53 PM
📌 Three new papers at #aiide25 from me:
1. A 'vision' paper about why game design is like procedural design bsky.app/profile/mtrc...
2. A new system for generating mechanics called Pixie bsky.app/profile/mtrc...
3. A big group paper about speedrunning as an AI challenge bsky.app/profile/mtrc...
1. A 'vision' paper about why game design is like procedural design bsky.app/profile/mtrc...
2. A new system for generating mechanics called Pixie bsky.app/profile/mtrc...
3. A big group paper about speedrunning as an AI challenge bsky.app/profile/mtrc...
#AIIDE25 wrapped! Thanks to everyone who made this year’s @aiide.bsky.social such a success. We’ll be back soon with announcements for ’26’s location and call, plus the ‘25 recordings. But for now I’m going to turn off my brain for 48 hours.
November 15, 2025 at 12:40 AM
#AIIDE25 wrapped! Thanks to everyone who made this year’s @aiide.bsky.social such a success. We’ll be back soon with announcements for ’26’s location and call, plus the ‘25 recordings. But for now I’m going to turn off my brain for 48 hours.
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
Kotaku wants to get in touch with developers about how AI is being used in your studio.
You can contact our tips hotline [email protected] or my secure email at [email protected]
We'll keep your identity protected and anonymize info so it's not traced back to you.
You can contact our tips hotline [email protected] or my secure email at [email protected]
We'll keep your identity protected and anonymize info so it's not traced back to you.
November 14, 2025 at 10:37 PM
Kotaku wants to get in touch with developers about how AI is being used in your studio.
You can contact our tips hotline [email protected] or my secure email at [email protected]
We'll keep your identity protected and anonymize info so it's not traced back to you.
You can contact our tips hotline [email protected] or my secure email at [email protected]
We'll keep your identity protected and anonymize info so it's not traced back to you.
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
New Paper: Pixie: Code-Level Mechanic Generation for Game Designers. How do you connect automatic game design to real games? Pixie is a mechanic generation system for Unity games, as an example framework for how to build AGD systems into real game platforms.
Read here: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AI...
Read here: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AI...
November 14, 2025 at 6:31 PM
New Paper: Pixie: Code-Level Mechanic Generation for Game Designers. How do you connect automatic game design to real games? Pixie is a mechanic generation system for Unity games, as an example framework for how to build AGD systems into real game platforms.
Read here: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AI...
Read here: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AI...
Final day of #AIIDE25 and final day of Emily's live posting!
I'm back with the last day of AIIDE 2025 live posting!
We're back to live (almost, because I was so engrossed I couldn't post during the talk) with Jonathan Schaeffer's keynote on the past, present, and potential future of Game AI.
What an amazing retrospective with insight into the future! I'll be thinking about this one for a while.
What an amazing retrospective with insight into the future! I'll be thinking about this one for a while.
November 14, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Final day of #AIIDE25 and final day of Emily's live posting!
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
NEW: The first two years of Massachusetts' millionaire tax has raised $3 billion more than expected.
And rather than driving the rich away, IPS researchers found that the number of millionaires has *increased.*
Tax the rich. Greg Ryan in @bloomberg.com:
And rather than driving the rich away, IPS researchers found that the number of millionaires has *increased.*
Tax the rich. Greg Ryan in @bloomberg.com:
Millionaire Tax That Inspired Mamdani Fuels $5.7 Billion Haul in Massachusetts
A millionaire levy in Massachusetts that New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani holds up as a model for taxing the rich has generated $3 billion more in revenue than expected without forcing...
www.bloomberg.com
November 12, 2025 at 4:01 PM
NEW: The first two years of Massachusetts' millionaire tax has raised $3 billion more than expected.
And rather than driving the rich away, IPS researchers found that the number of millionaires has *increased.*
Tax the rich. Greg Ryan in @bloomberg.com:
And rather than driving the rich away, IPS researchers found that the number of millionaires has *increased.*
Tax the rich. Greg Ryan in @bloomberg.com:
Related but distinct from #AIIDE25 is the release of SIMA 2 from DeepMind. Will Douglas Heaven has a nice, measured writeup and kindly included some critical quotes from me in it.
www.technologyreview.com/2025/11/13/1...
www.technologyreview.com/2025/11/13/1...
Google DeepMind is using Gemini to train agents inside Goat Simulator 3
SIMA 2, which can figure out how to solve problems inside virtual worlds, could lead to more general-purpose agents and better robots.
www.technologyreview.com
November 13, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Related but distinct from #AIIDE25 is the release of SIMA 2 from DeepMind. Will Douglas Heaven has a nice, measured writeup and kindly included some critical quotes from me in it.
www.technologyreview.com/2025/11/13/1...
www.technologyreview.com/2025/11/13/1...
Follow along with us through Emily's live posting for #AIIDE25 Day 2!
Once again live posting AIIDE 2025 Day 2!
And we're back live with AIIDE 2025 day 2! We're starting off with a very exciting keynote from Luke Dicken @luked.bsky.social and Nadine Perez titled 'An Algorithm is Just the Start'.
Looking forward to getting some insight into the challenges in applying academic research to industry!
Looking forward to getting some insight into the challenges in applying academic research to industry!
November 13, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Follow along with us through Emily's live posting for #AIIDE25 Day 2!
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
As of this morning, Starbucks workers across the country are officially ON STRIKE. And we're prepared for this to become the biggest and longest ULP strike in Starbucks history.
Say #NoContractNoCoffee with us: DON'T BUY STARBUCKS for the duration of our open-ended ULP strike! $SBUX
Say #NoContractNoCoffee with us: DON'T BUY STARBUCKS for the duration of our open-ended ULP strike! $SBUX
November 13, 2025 at 11:33 AM
As of this morning, Starbucks workers across the country are officially ON STRIKE. And we're prepared for this to become the biggest and longest ULP strike in Starbucks history.
Say #NoContractNoCoffee with us: DON'T BUY STARBUCKS for the duration of our open-ended ULP strike! $SBUX
Say #NoContractNoCoffee with us: DON'T BUY STARBUCKS for the duration of our open-ended ULP strike! $SBUX
Reposted by Matthew Guzdial
I am extremely honored and humbled to have been awarded a Test-of-Time award for my 2005 paper "From Linear Story Generation to Branching Story Graphs" with R. Michael Young
November 12, 2025 at 4:08 PM
I am extremely honored and humbled to have been awarded a Test-of-Time award for my 2005 paper "From Linear Story Generation to Branching Story Graphs" with R. Michael Young