I'm Eryk. I am a research scientist at Riot Games. I did my undergraduate degree in Cognitive Science at Yale University (Class of 2017), and did my masters degree in Artificial Intelligence at Johns Hopkins University (Class of 2024). My work touches a lot of topics in deep learning, specifically in spots where it could potentially add value to games. I am often referred to online as "Ambisinister" or sometimes just "Ambi"¹.

I use this website as a way to help me think about things. Scattered across this website are writings on various topics like machine learning, cognitive science, programming, video games, multimedia, energy drinks, anime, and all sorts of other things. This website is a big digital notebook that I use so I have easy access from any device to thoughts I have had before, even in cases where they are potentially silly. Writing is thinking, so a useful framework for understanding this website is that it contains my thinking, and is therefore always subject to change.

As a result, I keep no chronology of the posts I put on here, roughly by design – I have an explicit dislike for blogs, since I want both the reader and myself to revisit any page on here in 5/10/20 years. What works best for me is if I keep all of these thoughts in a large collection of plaintext files on my computer, and automatically generate the website from these files².

If you want to understand what I am up to, I do try to maintain a relatively light log of my inputs/outputs over on the links page, but since this is performed by hand there's no guarantee it will be comprehensive, it mostly serves as a way for me to save things I want to remember + keep myself accountable doing things.

You may eventually find a point on which you disagree with me on, perhaps extremely strongly. For these events, please consult the following directions:

For smaller disagreements, I would suggest just confronting me about them. I have a stronger interest in holding accurate beliefs than defending my own beliefs, so there's a very real chance that you'll be able to change my mind, and even if you're certain I won't be able to change yours I would probably appreciate the opportunity to challenge my own beliefs and make them more accurate. You can do this at virtually any time, and I will not request time to prepare myself since if I need preparation then I probably don't have a very solid grasp of why I believe the thing anyways.

For larger disagreements, we can settle it like gentlemen/women and have a good, honest duel over it. I propose a set of three games, each best of three. one in a game of my own choosing (most likely Super Smash Brothers Melee), one game of your choosing, and a game in the middle (let's say, rock paper scissors). For these disagreements, I suggest a training period of one month in which I can learn your game and you can learn mine, and at the end of the month we duel and the winner would be declared the victor, being definitively and objectively correct at whatever squabble we were having. I am reasonably competent at many games, but I am not amazing at any of them, so I find this to be a fair victory condition.

For the biggest, most impossible to resolve disagreements, I am willing to accept a challenge to a fair and honorable boxing match to the death. Please only use this option for the most passionate beliefs you have, those because of which my existence completely invalidates yours. I reserve the right to tap out at any time (with the condition that you are declared right, of course). However, this will require a full year of training, in which I will have enough time to get in decent shape, learn some sort of martial arts, and come to terms with the fragility of life. Like I mentioned, though, most things probably would be better suited for the previous condition with the three video games, so please choose those as a default option.

If you want to talk to me about academics or any of my more serious projects, feel free to shoot me an email at erykbanatt@gmail.com

You can find me on twitter. I maintain two accounts as to not flood people's timelines with crossed interests. Gaming: @ambisinister_ AI/ML: @erykbanatt.