Show Notes
AI Generating Algos, Learning to play Minecraft with Video PreTraining (VPT), Go-Explore for hard exploration, POET and Open Endedness, AI-GAs and ChatGPT, AGI predictions, and lots more! Professor Jeff Clune is Associate Professor of Computer Science at University of British Columbia, a Canada CIFAR AI Chair and Faculty Member at Vector Institute, and Senior Research Advisor at DeepMind.
Featured References Video PreTraining (VPT): Learning to Act by Watching Unlabeled Online Videos [ Blog Post ] Bowen Baker, Ilge Akkaya, Peter Zhokhov, Joost Huizinga, Jie Tang, Adrien Ecoffet, Brandon Houghton, Raul Sampedro, Jeff Clune Robots that can adapt like animals Antoine Cully, Jeff Clune, Danesh Tarapore, Jean-Baptiste Mouret Illuminating search spaces by mapping elites Jean-Baptiste Mouret, Jeff Clune
Enhanced POET: Open-Ended Reinforcement Learning through Unbounded Invention of Learning Challenges and their Solutions Rui Wang, Joel Lehman, Aditya Rawal, Jiale Zhi, Yulun Li, Jeff Clune, Kenneth O. Stanley Paired Open-Ended Trailblazer (POET): Endlessly Generating Increasingly Complex and Diverse Learning Environments and Their Solutions Rui Wang, Joel Lehman, Jeff Clune, Kenneth O. Stanley First return, then explore Adrien Ecoffet, Joost Huizinga, Joel Lehman, Kenneth O. Stanley, Jeff Clune
More from TalkRL: The Reinforcement Learning Podcast
Dr Thomas Frost is an emergency physician based in London, UK. He is also in the final stages of completing a PhD at University College London, where he has been looking at offline reinforcement learning applied to healthcare settings. Featured References
Danijar Hafner was a Research Scientist at Google DeepMind until recently.
David Abel is a Senior Research Scientist at DeepMind on the Agency team, and an Honorary Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. His research blends computer science and philosophy, exploring foundational questions about reinforcement learning, definitions, and the nature of agency.
Recorded at Reinforcement Learning Conference 2025 at University of Alberta, Edmonton Alberta Canada. Featured References
We caught up with the RLC Outstanding Paper award winners for your listening pleasure. Recorded on location at Reinforcement Learning Conference 2025, at University of Alberta, in Edmonton Alberta Canada in August 2025. Featured References