William Tunstall-Pedoe FREng[2] (born January 1969) is a British entrepreneur and computer scientist focussed on Artificial Intelligence. He was the founder and CEO of Evi (formerly True Knowledge),[3] a pioneering Voice Assistant, Semantic search and Question answering startup, and following the acquisition of Evi by Amazon was a key member of the team that built and launched Amazon Alexa.[4][5][1] He is currently the founder and CEO of Unlikely AI,[6] a British start-up focussed on producing safe, general intelligence using Neurosymbolic methods.[7]
William Tunstall-Pedoe | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 29, 1969 |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | Cambridge University |
| Awards | FREng |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Artificial Intelligence |
| Institutions | |
| Website | www |
Early life
editTunstall-Pedoe was born into a family of medical professional in Dulwich[8] and moved to Scotland when he was 13 years old where he wrote commercial software for a business run by the computer teacher at High School of Dundee.[8][1] He subsequently studied Computer Science at Churchill College University of Cambridge.
Angel Investing
editTunstall-Pedoe has been an angel investor and advisor to numerous startup companies,[9] including working as a fellow at Creative Destruction Lab at the Rotman School of Management and Said Business School
Boring Day
editIn 2010 Tunstall-Pedoe calculated that Sunday, 11 April 1954, was the most boring day in history.[10][11]
The Da Vinci Code and anagrams
editTunstall-Pedoe created an AI anagram generated application called Anagram Genius that turned any text into relevant anagrams. Dan Brown used the software to create the anagrams that were integral to the plot of The Da Vinci Code novel and his name appears in the acknowledgements of all 80 million copies sold. The same anagrams were used in the film The Da Vinci Code.[12][13]
AI chess
editTunstall-Pedoe was the developer of Cyber Chess published by The Fourth Dimension - an early commercial chess-playing program where the weights were tuned with a Genetic Algorithm[14]
References
edit- ^ a b c d "William Tunstall-Pedoe: The Cambridge AI guru who taught Amazon's Alexa how to talk". Business Insider.
- ^ a b "2019 Fellows William Tunstall-Pedoe". Royal Academy of Engineering.
- ^ "The Brit taking on Apple's Siri with 'Evi". Wired.
- ^ "Amazon Alexa and the Search for the One Perfect Answer". Wired.
- ^ Vlahos, James. Talk to Me - How Voice Computing Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Think. Penguin Books.
- ^ "What the 'Father of Alexa' did next". Sifted.
- ^ "Alexa co-creator gives first glimpse of Unlikely AI's tech strategy". Techcrunch.
- ^ a b "William Tunstall-Pedoe". The Royal Society.
- ^ "Angel Investor William Tunstall-Pedoe". The Times.
- ^ "Computer identifies the most boring day in history". The Daily Telegraph.
- ^ "Was April 11, 1954 the Most Boring Day in History?". CBS News.
- ^ "William Tunstall-Pedoe FREng". Fortune.
- ^ "William Tunstall-Pedoe". Centre for Science and Policy.
- ^ "William Tunstall-Pedoe". CPW.