  From a young age at school, I, kind
of, came to this realisation
that in some fundamental
sense there are only two subjects
really worth studying, physics
and neuroscience.
  For physics, of course, it's
all about explaining the external
world, so, you know
the external world out there, including
of course, the entire universe
and neuroscience and psychology
is really about conversely
explaining about what's inside
here, our internal world
  Then when I thought about this more
I actually came to the conclusion
that the mind was more important
because obviously that's the
way we actually interpret the external
world out there, and in fact, you
know, 'the mind interprets the world'
is something that was an idea that was
first proposed by the great philosopher
Immanuel Kant, and
really, it's the mind that creates
our reality around us
  So this is where AI comes
in, because
  the ultimate expression of understanding
something is being able to
recreate it, and as
Richard Feynman said, one of my scientific
heroes, 'What I cannot build
I do not truly understand,'
and that's one of the things that
I'm excited about with artificial
intelligence. I think, ultimately
it will help us understand our own minds
better. So my personal journey
started with games, and
that's how I got into AI. I started
off playing chess. I was taught
how to play chess when I was four
ended up playing various England
chess teams, and captaining various
England junior chess teams
and by age of twelve I was a chess
master. The thing is, when you
teach a kid from a very young
age how to play chess, and
if they have quite a reflective
personality like I had when I
was young, you can't help but thinking
and introspecting about what it
is about your mind that is
actually coming up with these
moves. What are the mechanisms
that allow you to make these
plans in such a complex game
as chess?
  So then when I was around eight years
old, I actually took some
winnings that I won from an international
chess tournament, and I bought my first
computer, a ZX Spectrum 48k
and I taught myself how to programme
  One of the first, sort of, big
programmes I can remember creating
was actually a programme to play
chess, and it didn't play very
well, but it was able to beat
my little brother, which I was very pleased
about when I was small.
  You know, it worked, and this was the
beginning of the path to me
towards AI.
