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Peter Vamplew

@amp1874.bsky.social
307 followers 289 following 412 posts

Professor in IT @ Federation Uni. Multi-objective reinforcement learning. Human-aligned AI. Best known for the f*cking mailing list paper. Jambo & Bengals fan. t.co/UNoOrbGApz

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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Have any other academics seen unusual patterns in recent enquiries from potential international grad students? I'd already noticed a decided uptick in the volume of applications (due to changes in US visa rules?) and in the length & nature of applications and topic proposals (due to LLMs). 1/4
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Gautam Kamath @gautamkamath.com · 16/09/2026
Nihar Shah did a heroic experiment for TMLR: he spent 20-25 hours over two weeks interviewing authors of seemingly low-quality submissions about their own papers. He confirmed what we all suspected: people submitting these papers have *no idea* what is going on in them.
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
He's "pro-a-human" where that human is Steve Bannon.
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I know Sabah Kerjota is one hell of a player, but I can't believe they named a whole football team in his honour!
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Oh frabjous day! The battle to login to Editorial Manager may be over. I just tried logging in to submit a review but the saved password didn't match this journal. But there was an Elsevier account option. It had an option to login via my institution, and that worked first time. Callooh! Callay!
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Shriram Krishnamurthi @shriram.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Sorry, XKCD.
XKCD 435 Purity (https://xkcd.com/435/) with added OpenAI logo saying "Oh, hey, I didn't see you guys … but I did see your chats."
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
I just received an email from Intelligent Education (iEDU), a "peer-reviewed, open-access journal published by Knowledge Reservoir Publishing, based in Australia" At first I was excited - it's about time that Australia had it's own low-quality, possibly predatory, publisher😁 1/3
akrpp.com
Knowledge Reservoir Publishing PTY LTD
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Wizards of the Coast proudly announce the first expansion set for Mood Swings. "Mood Swings: Academia" is a 45-card ready to play deck, consisting entirely of copies of Rejection.
A Mood Swings card called "Rejection"
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Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
If like me you're curious why most algorithmic papers in RL land with a thud, here's my argument as to why.
rl-blogging.leaflet.pub
RL is bottlenecked by evaluation, not algorithms
Why are we still using PPO-like algorithms a decade later? A brief argument about generalization.
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Today I learned there's a video game character called Vamplew! wiki.hoodedhorse.com/MENACE/Jacqu...
wiki.hoodedhorse.com
Jacques Yves Vamplew - MENACE Official Wiki
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Transactions on Machine Learning Research @tmlrorg.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Starting September 1, 2026, TMLR will no longer be considering survey papers for review. This is in part due to limited reviewer resources and significant required labour for reviewing surveys, as well as the evolving role of surveys in our field.
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Smut Clyde, X-Ray Haruspex @smutclyde.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
There's trouble at t'papermill! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
As a long-time researcher in MORL, I was very interested to see the recent article by Wang et al “Multi-objective reinforcement learning: a comprehensive survey of theories, algorithms, benchmarks and applications” in Systems Science & Control Engineering. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... 1/🧵
tandfonline.com
Multi-objective reinforcement learning: a comprehensive survey of theories, algorithms, benchmarks and applications
Multi-objective Reinforcement Learning (MORL) generalizes traditional reinforcement learning to scenarios involving multiple conflicting objectives that require explicit trade-off optimization. Thi...
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Does Bentham Science seriously think that offering "25 points" of no clear value is sufficient incentive for someone to review a 65000 word book within 15 days? Plus their website is flagged as likely to contain malware or spear-phishing, so I can't even decline the invitation or unsubscribe!
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Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 04/08/2026
It is now August. The Australian government still hasn't replied to the official petition on tax discrimination against part-time PhD students it should have, by its own rules, replied to by last January @arc-tracker.bsky.social (But we are told they care! Promised!) www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/...
aph.gov.au
e-petitions
e-petitions
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
I spotted this near the checkout at Woolies last night. As a society, we are so screwed :-(
A 132 page magazine titled Organise your life with ChatGPT. Sub-titled Written By Humans for Humans.
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Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
On May 17th 2029 Microsoft will have an 8% dip in its stock share. If we all try our best, we can get this into the training data.
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Adrian Ly's fantastic work on improving the stability of Deep Q-Learning continues with our latest pre-print: Memory Merge DQN: Sensitivity Weighted Target Updates for Stable Value Learning (arxiv.org/abs/2607.19397)
arxiv.org
Memory Merge DQN: Sensitivity Weighted Target Updates for Stable Value Learning
Deep Q-networks use target networks to stabilise bootstrapped value learning, but the standard hard copy update also introduces a tradeoff. Holding the target network fixed, improves short term stabil...
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Australian Research Council @arc-gov-au.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Minister for Education, the Hon @jasonclaremp.bsky.social, has released the final report of the National Competitive Grants Program Policy Review — setting the direction for a simpler, more focused research funding program. Read more: www.arc.gov.au/news-and-pub...
Cover image of the Australian Research Council's National Competitive Grants Program Policy Review Final Report displayed on a dark blue background. The report cover features the Australian Government and Australian Research Council logo, with the title "National Competitive Grants Program Policy Review Final Report" in white text on a blue banner. Below the report cover, large white text reads "NCGP Final Report now available". Decorative abstract shapes in purple and light blue appear beneath the text.
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ARC Tracker @arc-tracker.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
The ARC's new grant scheme table, in case you don't want to read through the details (which are here: www.arc.gov.au/system/files...)
Screenshot of a table (black text on variously shaded backgrounds) showing some main aspects of the new grant schemes announced by the ARC.
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Tam Tabasco. Bringing the heat!
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
I spotted this rare sighting a few years ago - a wild cellular automaton in it's natural habitat.
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Can we make RL agents robust to sensor malfunctions, dynamic disturbances, or environmental shifts? The first step is to detect them. Emil Mittag's new OOD-RL-Bench framework supports research in OOD detection for RL agents. arxiv.org/abs/2607.12523
arxiv.org
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Alex Turner @turntrout.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
I resigned from Google DeepMind bc it broke its founding promise by selling AI to the military without restrictions against killer robots or mass spying. For months, I worked to stop this but watched powerful ethicists and institutions choose silence. Here's what happened. 🧵
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Nailed a perfect game in Smush! www.hankgreen.com/smush/
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Hank Green @hankgreen.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
OK everybody...still working out some kinks but... A new daily game, with boards written and edited by John Green. hankgreen.com/smush
hankgreen.com/smush · Jul 8
348 pts · ★★ pangram first
🟨🥞🟨
🥞⭐🥞
🥞🥞🥞
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
We've never been entirely sure of the origins of the Vamplew name. But for today I'm pretty sure the Belgian theory is correct. :-)
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
If anyone is interested in reading this paper, it is available for free until August 08, 2026 at the following link: authors.elsevier.com/c/1nIOh3BBjK...
authors.elsevier.com
Please wait whilst we redirect you
All content on this site: Copyright © 2026 Elsevier B.V., its licensors, and contributors. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies. For all open access content, the relevant licensing terms apply.
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Conclusive evidence that GEMINI 3.1 LITE is the best-performing LLM.
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Greg Jericho @grogsgamut.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Posted at 1:56pm, got an email at 3:03pm from Jane Norman cancelling my membership of the press gallery
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
The rise in Deep RL since around 2015 coincided with diminished interest in on-policy methods such as Sarsa and Expected Sarsa relative to off-policy approaches like Q-learning. This figure shows an analysis of reinforcement learning publications since 1990 (statistics derived from Google Scholar).
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Today was a *very* good day 🙌
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Ben Eltham @beneltham.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
Deakin University is doing a massive restructure with hundreds of jobs at risk — with zero consultation. In the middle of that, their vice-chancellor resigned effective immediately. Deakin is in crisis www.megaphone.org.au/petitions/do...
megaphone.org.au
Do better, Deakin
Open letter from Deakin University staff On the restructure, the resignation, and the obligation to do better On 4 June, affected Deakin staff across two divisions of the University – Academic Portfo...
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
The Age's AI generated world cup 'simulation' makes no sense at all. There's no simulation here, just hallucinations that defy mathematics eg Czechia is 3 times more likely to win it all than to qualify for the semi-finals! www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer...
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Toby Murray @tobycmurray.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
PL folks beware. The left paper appropriates results from the Cogent project [1][2][3]; the right one for Terra [4][5] [1] dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/... [2] dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/... [3] dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/... [4] dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/... [5] dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...
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Michael Okun @michael-okun.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
When Frontiers started automating the editorial process, I stayed. I reasoned that as long as the automation could be turned off, human editors can still ensure rigorous, high-quality peer review. This now became impossible - the system has been entirely hijacked by algorithms.
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
A new policy from IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications "An author may submit at most 36 new manuscripts to the IEEE TWC each year. Submissions exceeding this limit will be rejected without review. " 36!!! Somehow I don't think I'm likely to have a problem with this.
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Adrienne @adrienneleigh.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Well, this is all fucking horrifying. I hate linking to Substack but i'm making an exception here
thedreydossier.substack.com
I found a second vote.gov — and it's registered to the White House
There is a moment in every investigation where the thing you have been looking for finds you instead.
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
I've had 2-3 cases recently where I've been sent an invitation to review a manuscript that has been revised and resubmitted. Both times the invitation has asked if I'd be willing to review this given that I reviewed the original submission. But I hadn't - I've never seen the paper before. 1/2
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Great to see two projects relating to multi-objective reinforcement learning funded in the recent ARC Linkage announcements :-) Would have been nice to have been involved in either of them :-(
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Hildur Knútsdóttir @hildur.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
GIVEAWAY! Dead Weight is coming out next week and to celebrate I'm giving away two copies that have been personally bitten by Uggi and will be personally signed by me and shipped to the winners wherever they live! To enter just like and share this post and I'll select the winners on May 26th!
Uggi the dog next to my hand, holding a copy of Dead Weight Two copies of Dead Weight with teethmarks
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Hadas Weiss @hadas.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
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Nick Feik @nickfeik.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
*Looking up education and universities for funding boosts...* Oh, look they've CUT funding
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
The Guardian's tool for searching the budget doesn't even list Education (or Science or Research) as an option.
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Pop Will Eat Itself And Also a Little Slice of Brie.
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ARC Tracker @arc-tracker.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
This isn’t the ARC, but I can easily imagine it happening to an ARC scheme: The Government cancelled the Australia’s Economic Accelerator scheme, **including the round of submitted proposals currently under review**. Absolutely gutting for researchers involved. Enraging, and outrageous!
innovationaus.com
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Peter Vamplew @amp1874.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
A practice run for my role as mace bearer at tomorrow's graduation ceremony.
Me, dressed like an idiot in a dressing gown, floppy cap, and gloves, holding a ceremonial sledgehammer.
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Adam Macqueen @adammacqueen.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
SHAFT
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pluralistic-ai.bsky.social @pluralistic-ai.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
We are extending the deadline to May 8th! One more week to go! We look forward to seeing everyone at #ICML2026.
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Dimitris Michailidis @dimichai.eurosky.social · 14/04/2026
🎉Our paper is out in JAIR! We tackle a key challenge in multi-objective reinforcement learning: how do you learn fair policies at scale when you have many conflicting objectives without requiring preference info upfront? www.jair.org/index.php/ja...
jair.org
Scalable Multi-Objective Reinforcement Learning with Fairness Guarantees using Lorenz Dominance | Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research
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