Matthias J. Déjà

Atheist, Engineer, Idea generator, Inventor, Technologist

I started to learn programming at about 13 years of age because I thought that computers can get a lot smarter than me when I instruct them how. More than twenty years after that, I am a professional developer. However, the work that I find most exciting takes place in my spare time. It is my hobby to develop Artificial Intelligence programs. My ideas are sometimes quite creative and unique. I try to find new approaches and viewpoints to outsmart professional AI developers. My way is probably the "crooked road" that will never lead to perfection, but perhaps to something that no one else has yet thought of. I am passionate and usually optimistic about the future and want to take my part in making it real.

Artificial Intelligence for fun & profit, evolutionary algorithms, futuristic visions, computer games, blogging and the global web community, this fresh modern strangeness that makes a difference

AI computer systems can help us organize our communal life on a global scale. The bad Hollywood vision of a merciless computer overlord misses the point: Computers are different than humans, and they can help us, rather than being interested in enslaving us. When state affairs can be predicted more exact by computers than by humans, politics will discover AI systems as indispensable tools. I hope that in the future, political decisions will be based less on intuition and clever marketing, but more on accurate predictions and scientifically powered data.

Apple/Mac computing, Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive science, Computers, Creative thinking, Java, Programming, Web

I cannot remember how I got to the first TED video, but since then, I was so fascinated that I watched all of them and always keep myself up-to-date on TED.

(Natural) languages, web design (and visual design in general), making music