Wolfgang Lehrach

Wolfgang Lehrach is a Staff Research Scientist at Google DeepMind working on AI research that includes code world models, large language models, planning, reinforcement learning, and general game playing. He presented Stanford HAI’s May 13, 2026 seminar “Code World Models for General Game Playing.”

LLMs Play Games Better When They Write Simulators First

DeepMind research scientist Wolfgang Lehrach argues that language models should not be asked to play games directly when their outputs are slow, strategically weak, or illegal. In a Stanford HAI seminar, he presents Code World Models, which use LLMs to translate natural-language rules and play traces into executable game simulators that planners such as Monte Carlo Tree Search or reinforcement learning can use. He also describes Autoharness, a narrower system that synthesizes code to check action legality, as part of the same broader case for turning LLM knowledge into executable structure rather than immediate moves.

Stanford HAIJun 5, 202617 min read