Ben Swift
researcher, educator, artist, developer
Leading Human-Scale AI at the Cybernetic Studio
Blog
Thoughts on research, art, code, teaching and whatever else is keeping me up at night.
Research
Peer-reviewed publications on AI/LLMs, creative computing, and human-computer interaction.
Teaching
Courses on agentic coding, creative computing, and cybernetics.
Livecoding
Curated and invited livecoding performances around the world.
Hi, I’m Dr. Ben Swift. I build things that make AI legible to the people it affects: students, teachers, public servants, and anyone else who’d like to know what’s going on under the hood. I lead the Cybernetic Studio at the ANU School of Cybernetics, where our Human-Scale AI program slows computation down and blows it up until you can get your hands on it.
The best-known of those things is LLMs Unplugged, where you build a language model with pen, paper and dice. I also teach Agentic Coding Studio, a course on shipping real software with AI coding agents like Claude Code, and I make open-data and art projects like the APS AI Tracker and Slop University. Before all that I was a livecoder, and I still am when the day job lets me. There’s more on my research page, my code is on GitHub, and sometimes I write about all of this on my blog.
I care a lot about making computing a welcoming, interesting and creatively satisfying place, especially for people who don’t fit the traditional picture of a “computer scientist”.
If you’d like to get in touch—and please do!—you can email me at [email protected].