This is the home page of Jonathan Schaeffer, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus in the Department of Computing Science at the University of Alberta.

Note: I am not accepting any graduate students for the foreseeable future.

I am a Founder and CEO of Synsira Software Solutions Inc. Think of all the concerns you have with AI large language models. If only we could eliminate them. Try out our desktop application Kind to see how we can give you private, hallucination-free Q&A for your personal data. I have numerous blog articles relating to the current state of AI here.

My research area is artificial intelligence (AI). I am best known for my work applying AI technology to the problem of building high performance game-playing programs, as well as tackling the challenges of the commercial computer games industry. I am the lead author of the checkers-playing program Chinook, the first computer program to win a human world championship. In 2007 we announced that the game had been solved: perfect play by both sides leads to a draw.

I have a discontinued blog about my life in academia. Check it out here.

New books: An introduction to AI for non-scientists, the story of man versus machine for supremacy at chess, and historical fiction telling the story of Sir John Franklin's tragic expedition to uncover the last link in the quest for the North-west Passage.