Philip S. Thomas
Associate Professor, Co-Director of the Autonomous Learning Lab, and
Doctoral Program Director
pthomas [at]
cs [dot]
umass [dot]
edu
My research focuses on artificial intelligence (AI), with particular emphasis on reinforcement learning and AI safety. I introduced the
qualia optimization (.pdf) framework, which formalizes problem settings where the experiential quality (e.g., pain or pleasure) of AI agents is considered alongside performance. I also introduced
Seldonian algorithms for safe and fair AI. I am the co-director of the
Autonomous Learning Lab (ALL) at UMass (2017–present) and president and co-founder of the
Reinforcement Learning Conference (RLC).
Previously I worked as a postdoc for
Emma Brunskill at
CMU. I completed my Ph.D. in computer science at UMass in 2015, where
Andrew Barto was my adviser. I completed my B.S. and M.S. in computer science at
CWRU in 2008 and 2009, where
Michael Branicky was my adviser. Before that, in high school, I was introduced to computer science and mentored by
David Kosbie.