People / Students / 2023-2024 Cohort
Matthew Daugherty
Matthew received his bachelor's in computer science from Full Sail University in 2005. From there he was hired by Midway Games as a programmer on the Mortal Kombat team. Matthew has been with this team, under various corporate umbrellas, ever since and has worked his way up to advanced software engineer in the core technology group. Matthew now has roughly 18 years of AAA game development experience and 11 shipped titles.
As he's progressed in game development his interest and focus has shifted pretty far away from 'making video games' as a gameplay engineer and deep into the engine systems and asset pipeline. In this role, Matthew constantly strived to improve processes and systems for ever higher performance and efficiency. It was this mindset that first got Matthew interested in machine learning and AI, as ML algorithms are widely known to be powerful techniques for optimization problems.
Matthew is now enthralled with the powerful potential that AI in general and cognitive systems in particular could bring to humanity. As a staunch humanist and progressive, he's also wary of the potential for abuse of this technology.
After completion of the MSAI program, Matthew hopes to move into a research role in cognitive systems and AGI with a focus in ethics and safety to help ensure that all of humanity can reap the benefits of these powerful technologies.
