Growing up with Lucy: How to Build an Android in Twenty Easy Steps [Hardcover]

"Growing up with Lucy takes the reader through Grand's work to date. He relates the pleasures and frustrations of working from home on a shoestring budget and explains his ideas about how the human brain functions... Grand's engaging style always carries you along. And Lucy is a fascinating project." (NEW SCIENTIST )

"Growing up with Lucy is a long and chatty newsletter from the friendliest artificial intelligence researcher you could wish to meet." (Graham Farmelo THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )

"Fiercely dedicated and passionate about his subject... essential reading." (FOCUS )

"never less than interesting" (BRYAN APPLEYARD NEW STATESMAN )

"cheerfully self-deprecating but hugely inspiring." (DAILY TELEGRAPH )

"cheerfully self-deprecating but hugely inspiring."

"never less than interesting"

"Growing up with Lucy takes the reader through Grand's work to date. He relates the pleasures and frustrations of working from home on a shoestring budget and explains his ideas about how the human brain functions... Grand's engaging style always carries you along. And Lucy is a fascinating project."

"Growing up with Lucy is a long and chatty newsletter from the friendliest artificial intelligence researcher you could wish to meet."

"Fiercely dedicated and passionate about his subject... essential reading."

Steve Grand's first-hand account of the three years spent trying to build the most advanced artificial intelligence robot in the world. Steve Grand is a self-taught scientist who has deliberately eschewed large public grants and laboratory affiliation so as to give himself the freedom required to put his revolutionary theories on artificial intelligence to the test. The result is Lucy, one of the most advanced research robots in existence, and it is Lucy's successes and failures which stand as indicators of the present state of robotics. The compelling story of Lucy's creation, all done in Steve's own home, is a fascinating mixture of human perseverance and cutting edge scientific endeavour. The birth of Lucy has massive implications for us all.

Steve Grand was cofounder and director of technology at the UK-based CyberLife Technology. He is the inventor of the groundbreaking computer game 'Creatures'. A former visiting research fellow at the University of Sussex and columnist for a leading journal on artificial intelligence, he has written numerous articles and lectures widely on the topic of artificial life. He was nominated by The Sunday Times as one of 'The Brains Behind the 21st Century', and received a CBE in the millennium honours list for his contribution to the computer games industry.