David Levy

David Levy was born in London in 1945. He studied Pure Mathematics, Statistics and Physics at St. Andrews University, Scotland, from 1963 to 1967, where he graduated with a B.Sc. degree.

He taught practical classes in computer programming in the Computer Science Department of Glasgow University from 1967 to 1971, before moving into the world of business, and professional chess playing and writing.

David’s interest in artificial intelligence started with computer chess, which was a logical combination of his addiction to chess and his work in the field of computing. His initial interest expanded beyond computer games into other areas of AI, including human-computer conversation. In 1994 he brought together a team to investigate pragmatic solutions to the problem, resulting in his team winning the Loebner Prize competition in New York in 1997. Since then David has published a primer on AI, Robots Unlimited. His fiftieth book, Love and Sex with Robots, was published in November 2007, just a few weeks after he was awarded a PhD by the University of Maastricht for a thesis on the same subject, entitled Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners.