Matt Botvinick
Matt Botvinick (Matthew Botvinick) is an American neuroscientist and AI researcher who taught at the University of PennsylvaniaUniversity of PennsylvaniaThe University of Pennsylvania, commonly called Penn, is a private research university and Ivy League member in Philadelphia. It traces its origins to a 1740 charity-school project; Benjamin Franklin proposed his academy in 1749, classes began in 1751, and a 1791 merger established the institution under its present name. Penn has 12 schools, with undergraduate education concentrated in arts and sciences, engineering, nursing and Wharton. Enrollment totaled 29,384 in fall 2025, and the fiscal 2025 endowment was $24.81 billion. As of October 2026, J. Larry Jameson was president, with his term scheduled to end on June 30, 2027.Open the full entry and Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private university and Ivy League member in Princeton, New Jersey. Chartered on October 22, 1746 as the College of New Jersey, it moved to Princeton in 1756 and adopted its present name in 1896. Undergraduate education leads to A.B. and B.S.E. degrees and emphasizes small-group discussion, independent research and residential college life. Graduate education spans the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering. As of October 2026, Christopher L. Eisgruber was president. Its 2026–27 operating budget was $3.407 billion, including $342 million for undergraduate aid.Open the full entry, joined DeepMindGoogle DeepMindGoogle DeepMind is Google’s artificial intelligence research organization, formed in April 2023 by merging DeepMind, which Google acquired in 2014, with the Brain team from Google Research, and led by CEO Demis Hassabis. It developed AlphaGo, AlphaFold, and the Gemini family of models, and Hassabis and John Jumper received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for AlphaFold’s protein structure prediction work.Open the full entry in 2016 to lead its neuroscience research, and since 2026 has led work on AI and the rule of law at AnthropicAnthropicAnthropic is an artificial intelligence research and product company founded in 2021 that develops the Claude models, assistant, and tools such as Claude Code, and operates as a public benefit corporation. Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei are its co-founders, and its research covers model safety, interpretability, and steerability.Open the full entry.
Contents14 sections
Key facts
February 1998Reports the Rubber Hand Illusion with Jonathan Cohen
In February 1998 Botvinick and Jonathan Cohen published “Rubber hands ‘feel’ touch that eyes see” in Nature, reporting an illusion in which tactile sensations are referred to an alien limb, later known as the rubber hand illusion.[1]
2001PhD from Carnegie Mellon University
He earned his bachelor’s degree at Stanford, completed medical studies at CornellCornell UniversityCornell University is a private research university in Ithaca, New York, and a member of the Ivy League. It is New York State's federal land-grant university, a distinction unique within the Ivy League. Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White founded the university in 1865, and it opened in 1868. In addition to its Ithaca campus, Cornell operates Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell Tech in New York City and a medical college in Qatar. It enrolled 26,793 students in fall 2024. Its president is Michael I. Kotlikoff.Open the full entry, and received a PhD in psychology and cognitive neuroscience from Carnegie Mellon UniversityCarnegie Mellon UniversityCarnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It grew out of the Carnegie Technical Schools, founded with funding from Andrew Carnegie in 1900, which were renamed the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1912 and took the present name after merging with the Mellon Institute in 1967. The university is known for computer science, robotics, engineering, and the arts, and has campuses in Qatar, Silicon Valley, and Rwanda. As of September 2025, it enrolled 16,582 students. Its current president is Farnam Jahanian. On September 30, 2026, the university announced a $3 billion gift from Ken Griffin and plans to build a new campus in Miami.Open the full entry in 2001.[2]
He recalled turning to cognitive science after reading Parallel Distributed Processing by Jay McClelland and colleagues during a psychiatry rotation at Cornell medical school; he earned his CMU doctorate alongside a psychiatry residency.[3]
July 2001Proposes the Conflict-Monitoring Theory
In July 2001 he, Cameron Carter, Todd Braver, Deanna Barch and Jonathan Cohen published “Conflict monitoring and cognitive control” in Psychological Review, proposing that the demand for control may be evaluated in part by monitoring for conflicts in information processing.[4]
2007Moves from the University of Pennsylvania to Princeton University
He taught at the University of Pennsylvania until 2007 and then moved to Princeton University.[2]
At both universities he led the Neural Computation Lab.[5]
2015Sabbatical Leads Him to DeepMind
In 2015 he took a sabbatical from Princeton to learn about DeepMind and update his understanding of machine learning, and stayed on: “I never left.”[3]
2016Formally Joins DeepMind
In 2016, after 20 years in academia, he joined DeepMind, later serving as Senior Director of Research and Senior Technology and Policy Advisor.[6]
He is also an honorary professor at University College London’s Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit.[2]
May 2018Meta-Reinforcement Learning Theory of the Prefrontal Cortex
In May 2018 he and DeepMind colleagues including Jane Wang and Zeb Kurth-Nelson published research in Nature Neuroscience proposing that dopamine does more than use reward to update the value of past actions, helping the prefrontal cortex act as a meta-reinforcement learning system that adapts quickly to new tasks.[7]
January 15, 2020Distributional Code for Value in Dopamine, in Nature
On January 15, 2020, he, Will Dabney, Demis HassabisDemis HassabisDemis Hassabis is a British artificial intelligence researcher and entrepreneur, co-founder of DeepMind and its CEO and that of Google DeepMind from 2010 to 2026, and since then Chair of Google DeepMind, Chief Scientist of Alphabet and CEO of Isomorphic Labs; a former chess prodigy and game designer, he shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with John Jumper for AlphaFold’s protein structure prediction, and has appeared twice on the Lex Fridman Podcast.Open the full entry and others published a Nature paper finding that dopamine neurons in the mouse ventral tegmental area respond to the same rewards more optimistically or pessimistically, supporting a distributional reinforcement learning model.[8]
July 3, 2020Appears on the Lex Fridman Podcast
On July 3, 2020, as DeepMind’s Director of Neuroscience Research, he appeared on episode 106 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, discussing the prefrontal cortex, meta-reinforcement learning, dopamine and the relationship between neuroscience and AI research.[9]
2025Doctoral Studies at Yale Law School
In 2025, alongside his work at Google DeepMind, he was pursuing doctoral studies at Yale Law School; he also holds an M.D. from Cornell with board certification in psychiatry and an M.A. in art history from Columbia.[10]
March 11, 2026Joins the Anthropic Institute to Lead Work on AI and the Rule of Law
On March 11, 2026, Anthropic announced the Anthropic Institute, which Botvinick, then a Resident Fellow at Yale Law School, joined to lead its work on AI and the rule of law.[11]
October 6, 2026Publishes AI and Political Freedom
On October 6, 2026, Princeton University Press published his book AI and Political Freedom: The Risk to Democracy and How to Respond, on the risks AI poses to American democracy and how to respond.[5]
Related Organizations, Websites, and Public Accounts
Anthropic: Official website: https://www.anthropic.com/ (opens in a new window)[11]
Google DeepMind: Official website: https://deepmind.google/ (opens in a new window)[7]
Sources
- Rubber hands 'feel' touch that eyes see (opens in a new window)
- Matthew Botvinick – Simons Foundation (opens in a new window)
- Thinking Outside the Brain (opens in a new window)
- Conflict monitoring and cognitive control (opens in a new window)
- AI and Political Freedom: The Risk to Democracy and How to Respond (opens in a new window)
- Matthew Botvinick - iCivics (opens in a new window)
- Prefrontal cortex as a meta-reinforcement learning system (opens in a new window)
- A distributional code for value in dopamine-based reinforcement learning (opens in a new window)
- #106 - Matt Botvinick: Neuroscience, Psychology, and AI at DeepMind | Lex Fridman Podcast (opens in a new window)
- Participant Bios – ISPS Governing X Series (opens in a new window)
- Introducing The Anthropic Institute (opens in a new window)