SRI Seminar Series: Brad Knox

Our weekly SRI Seminar Series welcomes Brad Knox, research associate professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin. A pioneer in human-in-the-loop reinforcement learning, Knox’s work explores how humans can teach AI systems through feedback, demonstration, and interaction. He is best known for his early contributions to reinforcement learning from human feedback, as well as his recent work on building socially engaging agents.

Knox’s current research focuses on how people specify reward functions and shape behavior in AI companions—agents designed to interact with humans over time in meaningful, responsive ways. Drawing on research in interactive machine learning and real-world deployments, Knox’s work offers a window into the future of human–AI relationships, and the technical and ethical challenges of building AI companions we can trust.

Moderator: Sheila McIlraith, Department of Computer Science

Talk title and abstract to be announced.

About the speaker

Brad Knox is a research associate professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin. His research has largely focused on the human side of reinforcement learning. He is currently concerned with how humans can specify reward functions that are aligned with their interests. Knox's dissertation, “Learning from Human-Generated Reward,” comprised early pioneering work on human-in-the-loop reinforcement learning and reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), and it won the 2012 best dissertation award for the UT Austin Department of Computer Science. His postdoctoral research at the MIT Media Lab focused on creating interactive characters through machine learning on puppetry-style demonstrations of interaction. Stepping away from research during 2015–2018, Knox founded and sold his startup Bots Alive, working in the toy robotics sector. In recent years, Knox co-led the Bosch Learning Agents Lab at UT Austin and was a senior research scientist at Google. He has won multiple best paper awards and was named to IEEE Intelligent System’s AI’s 10 to Watch in 2013.

About the SRI Seminar Series

The SRI Seminar Series brings together the Schwartz Reisman community and beyond for a robust exchange of ideas that advance scholarship at the intersection of technology and society. Seminars are led by a leading or emerging scholar and feature extensive discussion.

About the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

The Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society is a research institute at the University of Toronto that explores the ethical and societal implications of technology. Our mission is to deepen knowledge of technologies, societies, and humanity by integrating research across traditional boundaries to build human-centred solutions.

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