Steve Grand

Timeline

1. 1978

   Teacher turned games programmer

   After training as a primary school teacher, he builds his first computer in 1978 and goes on to write educational software and adventure games. One game, about ancient Rome, is published in the US by Maxis.

2. 1996

   The Creatures artificial life game

   Cyberlife Technology releases his game Creatures in 1996. Its inhabitants, called Norns, are built from hundreds of simulated neurons, enzymes and genes, and the game goes on to inspire many people to pursue careers in artificial intelligence. He becomes a board member and CTO of the company behind it.

3. 1998–1999

   Leaving Cyberlife for robotics

   In late 1998 he becomes leader of the Cyberlife Institute research lab. When he leaves Cyberlife at the end of 1999, he founds Cyberlife Research and turns from video games to robotics as a route to AI.

4. 2000

   An OBE

   He is appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2000.

5. 2001

   Creation: Life and How to Make It

   His first book, Creation: Life and How to Make It, appears in 2001 from Weidenfeld & Nicolson and explores the meaning of life, the meaning of existence and the nature of virtuality. It is a finalist for the 2001 Aventis Prize for Science Books.

6. 2001–2004

   Building Lucy the robot

   In 2001 he starts building Lucy, a mechanical baby orangutan meant to learn as a human baby would. A $68,000 grant from NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, pays for 15 new computers and an improved Lucy. He tells the story in his 2004 book Growing Up with Lucy, and Lucy ends up in the permanent collection of the London Science Museum.

7. 2011–2014

   Grandroids on Kickstarter

   In February 2011 he announces Grandroids, a project to build alien life forms that live in a virtual world on a computer. Around 700 supporters fund it on Kickstarter, which raises more than $50,000, and backers receive a rudimentary demo in April 2014. Virtual muscles wired directly to each creature's brain drive its movements through a physics engine.

8. As of October 2026

   Developing Phantasia

   In September 2024 the project is renamed Phantasia and its progress updates are made public. He develops it independently as an artificial life simulation and an experiment in artificial general intelligence, with the aim of creatures that can actually think.