Sony Interactive Entertainment Comes to MIT

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), creators of the PlayStation platform, and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT partnered last January to launch a new IAP course exploring the nexus of video games and artificial intelligence. This highly popular course brought together students, researchers, and industry practitioners to examine how AI is transforming the design, play, and social impact of games.

This year, an expanded version of the course will be available for credit and will be led by Professor Fredo Durand. Like last year, the course will combine a series of lectures and hackathon-style projects, the latter chosen from a list of examples or otherwise devised, to introduce students to game creation, current game-related research and an exploration of the technology, the art and the fun of video games.

Students wishing to take this course for credit must apply through the Registrar's website.

If you are interested in taking this course over IAP and receive no credit or you are not an MIT student, please email Nicole Hoffman (nicolemh@mit.edu) to be placed on the waitlist. 

Description: Computers and gaming have grown up together. Since Bertie the Brain learned to play Tic Tac Toe in 1950, computers have hosted, played, and designed increasingly sophisticated games as they have grown in power. For every computer science paper on the arXiv – from computer vision to LLMs to personal immersion to cognitive science and general AI – there are a half dozen use cases you can name in the creation of video games. Furthermore, video games provide new worlds and synthetic data that test and stretch the capabilities of machine learning models – so the relationship is synergistic.
Through lectures and discussions, students in Nexus II will engage with topics including interactive storytelling, responsible AI, human–computer interaction, and advances in large-scale data platforms. Speakers from both academia and industry will share perspectives on how AI is reshaping the way games are created and experienced, and how games themselves are being used as testbeds for advancing AI.

Audience: The course is targeted at those who have an interest in video games and machine learning. There are no specific prerequisites.

Structure: Project-oriented course combined with lectures.

Readings: Readings will be chosen from the literature.

The program is designed to be accessible to a broad MIT audience, requiring no specialized background in computer science or game development. We encourage students with an interest in art, psychology, writing, social impact and design of games to participate.

Format (2026 Updates)

The 2026 edition of Nexus expands in scope and ambition. The course will now be offered for MIT credit, with Professor Fredo Durand (MIT CSAIL) serving as faculty sponsor. To accommodate demand, the class will meet in a larger space with a maximum enrollment of 60 students.
 

- Schedule: 12 lectures, Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays, January 5–30, 2026.

- Time: Most lectures will be from 1 – 2 pm with an extra half hour for discussion. Jan 12 will have two lectures back-to-back from 11:00-12:00 & 1:00– 2:00pm.

- Structure: Lectures (~60–75 minutes) with Q&A, culminating in student team projects presented on January 30.
- Recording: Pending approval, lectures will be recorded and made available on MIT’s YouTube channel.

Lecturers

• Jan 5 – Mike Stopa (Sony Interactive Entertainment) & Fredo Durand (MIT CSAIL) — Introduction & Course Overview
• Jan 7 – Nate Gross (Sr. Manager, Software Engineering, SIE) — A big-picture tour of how AI is reshaping design, art, code, testing, and live ops, from idea to shipped game
• Jan 9 – Erick Flores (SIE) — The Learned Renderer: Bridging Computer Graphics and Machine Learning
• Jan 12 –
  (i) Gale Lucas (University of Southern California) — AI with Social Influence for Enjoyment in Gaming; This session will take place 11-12 plus Q&A in 32-G449 (KIVA)
• (ii) Ryan Valenza (Sr. Director, AI and Data Platform, SIE) — AI for Game Development and Operations
• Jan 14 – Neil Ingram (SIE) - AI in Game Production: Navigating Risk, Unlocking Opportunity
• Jan 16 – Ram Barankin (SIE) — Leveraging Social Media and Generative AI to Understand Gamers
• Jan 19 – holiday
• Jan 21 – Leanne Chukoskie (Northeastern University) — Eyes on the game: what gaze behavior can tell us about player skill in Rocket League
• Jan 23 – Jennifer Corbett (MIT) - Don't let your learned preferences control you
• Jan 26 – Logan Olson (Haven and Nexus I alumnus) – 0-1 game dev with ML
• Jan 28 – Fox Harrell – confirmed. Title TBD
• Jan 30 – Student Project Presentations & After-Party
   

Lectures Jan 5 – 16 will take place in Stata Center on the first floor in Classroom 32-144

Lectures Jan 21 – 30 will take place in Stata Center on the first floor in Classroom 32-124

The final project presentations will take place in Stata center 4^th Floor, Seminar Room 32-G449 (KIVA)
 

Goals

- Highlight cutting-edge research at the interface of AI and games, spanning perception, cognition, storytelling, and design.
- Provide students with practical and theoretical insights from both academic and industry experts.
- Foster collaboration and create a pipeline for research internships and future careers in AI and games.
- Share knowledge broadly by publishing recorded lectures via CSAIL’s YouTube channel (pending approval).

Project Examples

- Designing an AI-driven non-player character (NPC) that adapts to player behavior.
- Building a prototype of an interactive story generator guided by large language models.
- Studying player engagement with different reinforcement learning–driven mechanics.
- Exploring responsible AI in gaming contexts (e.g., bias mitigation, ethical design).
- Investigating accessibility and inclusivity in game interaction through AI-driven tools.

Final Session

On January 30, student teams will present their projects to the class, guest lecturers, and invited colleagues. This capstone session will be followed by an after-party celebrating the close of Nexus II.