Simon Ellis

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Computer Science, PhD•  September 2011 - August 2016

My research was based on techniques used by IBM Watson (2011, 'Jeopardy!'). I developed a system to play combinatorially explosive games without significant game tree searching or machine learning, using combinations of small evaluation mechanisms ordered in a pipeline. As well as Watson I investigated how humans perceive their methods of playing games and developed a concept for a 'cognitive pipeline' which formed the backbone of the prototype architecture, Aleph. Hector, the final AI agent, was able to beat any human player at the game chosen to demonstrate the cognitive gameplaying system, 'Infinite City' (AEG).