Steve Grand (roboticist)

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Steve Grand
Born (1958-02-12) 12 February 1958 (age 66)
NationalityBritish
Occupations
  • Computer scientist
  • roboticist
AwardsOrder of the British Empire (2000)
Websitegrandroids.com

Steve Grand OBE (born 12 February 1958) is a British computer scientist and roboticist.[1] He was the creator and lead programmer of the Creatures artificial life simulation, which he discussed in his first book Creation: Life and How to Make It, a finalist for the 2001 Aventis Prize for Science Books. He is also an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, which he received in 2000.[2]

Grand's project from 2001 to 2006 was the building of an artificial robot baby orangutan, with the intention of having it learn as a human baby would.[3][4][5] This is documented in his book Growing up with Lucy.

Projects[edit]

Creatures

One of the best known projects created by Steve Grand is Creatures, an artificial life simulation, which his company Cyberlife Technology released in the 1996. It was the first in a series of games.

Lucy, the Android

His project from 2001 to 2005 was Lucy, a mechanical baby orangutan. Lucy was an attempt at simulating the mind of a human baby.[6][7][8]

Sim-biosis

Grand worked on Sim-biosis, a computer simulation game in which complete artificial creatures could be built from functional, structural units.[9] It is available on SourceForge under the name Simergy.[10]

Grandroids

In February 2011, Grand announced a new project, Grandroids, described as "real 'alien' life forms who can live in a virtual world on your computer".[11]

Bibliography[edit]

  • Creation: Life and How to Make It (2001) ISBN 0-7538-1277-0
  • Growing Up with Lucy (2004) ISBN 0-297-60733-2
  • What is the Secret of Consciousness? (2014) TEDxOporto presentation

References[edit]

  1. ^ Daniel, Dr (9 January 2006). "Science seen under the right conditions". BBC News. Retrieved 6 March 2011.
  2. ^ "Investiture". Archived from the original on 21 April 2008. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
  3. ^ "SCI/TECH | Robots get busy". BBC News. 27 December 2000. Retrieved 6 March 2011.
  4. ^ "Radio 4 - The Material World 07/04/2005". BBC. Retrieved 6 March 2011.
  5. ^ Dermody, Nick (18 March 2004). "UK | Wales | A Grand plan for brainy robots". BBC News. Retrieved 6 March 2011.
  6. ^ Lyall, Sarah (2 February 2002). "Man Who Would Be God: Giving Robots Life". The New York Times.
  7. ^ Dermody, Nick (18 March 2004). "A Grand plan for brainy robots". BBC News.
  8. ^ "Cyberlife Research Product 1". 14 December 2005. Archived from the original on 14 December 2005. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  9. ^ Grand, Steve (2008). "Creating artificial life for fun, one cell at a time" (PDF). PerAda Magazine. doi:10.2417/2200812.1449. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 December 2017.
  10. ^ Leitl, Eugen. "[tt] [alife] Steve Grand's project released open source". Archived from the original on 1 December 2017.
  11. ^ "Blowing my own trumpet « Steve Grand's Blog". Stevegrand.wordpress.com. 28 February 2011. Retrieved 6 March 2011.

External links[edit]