21. Evolution and AI with Tim Taylor

Tim works in academic research and commercial development of Artificial Life (ALife) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, with a particular interest in the foundational issues of true autonomy and open-ended creative evolution. He is also interested in the historical development of these ideas, and has recently written a book on the (very) early history of the idea of self-reproducing and evolving machines ("The Spectre of Self-Reproducing Machines: An Early History of Evolving Robots", currently under review with publisher). He holds an MA in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge (specialising in Experimental Psychology), followed by a MSc (with distinction) and PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh. He has held a wide variety of positions in academia and in tech companies, including work on evolutionary techniques in the games industry (MathEngine PLC, Oxford), postdoctoral research on swarm robotics (University of Edinburgh) and co-founder and CTO of a company developing continuous learning AI systems for fund management (Timberpost). He is an elected board member of the International Society for Artificial Life and an associate examiner for the University of London Worldwide.