Hillis, W. Daniel 1956-

views updated

HILLIS, W. Daniel 1956-

PERSONAL:

Born September 25, 1956, in Baltimore, MD; married; wife's name, Pati; children: Asa, Noah, India. Education: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, B.S. (mathematics), 1978, M.S., 1981, Ph.D. (computer science), 1988.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Los Angeles, CA. Office—Applied Minds, Inc., 1209 Grand Central Avenue, Glendale, CA 91201; fax: 818-244-0204. E-mail—mail@appliedminds.com.

CAREER:

Entrepreneur, educator, and author. Thinking Machines Corp., Cambridge, MA, cofounder and chief technology officer, 1983-94; Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory, Cambridge, MA, adjunct professor, 1994; DHSH (consulting firm), founder and president, 1994-96; Walt Disney Company, Imagineering, Glendale, CA, vice president of research and development, and Disney fellow, 1996-2000; Applied Minds, Inc., Glendale, founder, cochair, and chief technology officer, 2000—. Board cochair for Long Now Foundation; board member of Hertz Foundation; science board member of Santa Fe Institute; member of technical advisory committee for SETI Institute; member, Presidential Information Technology advisory committee; advisory board member, Yale Institute for Biosphere Studies. Holds forty U.S. patents.

MEMBER:

Association of Computing Machinery, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, International Leadership Forum.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Spirit of American Creativity Award; Hopper Award; Ramanujan Award; Dan David Prize, Tel Aviv University, 2002.

WRITINGS:

The Connection Machine, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1985.

(Coeditor, with James Bailey) A New Era in Computation, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1992.

The Pattern on the Stone: The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work, Basic Books (New York, NY), 1998.

Editor of scientific journals, including Artificial Life, Complexity, Applied Mathematics, Science, Nature, and Modern Biology.

SIDELIGHTS:

Since the time he and his friends invented a Tinkertoy computer that could play tic-tac-toe, W. Daniel Hillis has been fascinated by the idea of building different types of computers and exploring the amazing possibilities inherent in computerization. Even before graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he had cofounded Thinking Machines Corporation to market the Connection Machine, a massively parallel supercomputer with over 64,000 processors. His clients soon included giants like American Express, the Dow Jones Company, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It was a dramatic start to a career that would take Hillis to the heights of the computer science profession at a time when computers were solidifying their position in virtually every aspect of modern life. Hillis's own parallel computer had applications in astrophysics, financial services, medical imaging, cryptography, and neurobiology, among other major industries and sciences. As Hillis told the Wall Street Journal in 1994, "All the fastest computers in the world now follow this basic design."

Unfortunately, Hillis and his colleages did not possess business acumen that matched their technological genius, and by 1994 the company was facing financial hardships, ultimately filing for Chapter Eleven bankruptcy. In 1995 Hillis left Thinking Machines to found his own consulting firm, and obtained the Walt Disney Company as a client. Eventually, he was hired as Disney's vice president of research and development and became the company's first Disney fellow. He developed technologies for Disney's television shows, movies, and theme parks, including a full-sized, walking dinosaur robot. In 2000 he again decided to branch out on his own, founding Applied Minds, Inc., to create and market computer applications with a wide range of uses in entertainment, electronics, and biotechnology. He is also the co-founder and cochair of the Long Now Foundation, for which he designed a 10,000-year clock designed to dramatically expand humanity's time-horizons.

One of Hillis's longstanding interests is artificial intelligence and the growing linkages between biology and computer science; in fact, he had planned on studying biology before he discovered his true calling in engineering computer systems. At Disney he continued to pursue this interest, creating a series of experimental computer programs designed to use a process he calls "artificial evolution." As he told Los Angeles Times reporter Steve Proffitt, "Electronic computers are just a cheap imitation of the original, which is the brain. And as we develop the technology of biology, I think we'll have to start thinking of our own bodies as machines. That's because we'll be able to understand how they work, replace broken parts, and fix malfunctioning systems. At the same time, it will be possible to build machines out of the same components our bodies are built out of." Hillis and other designers use natural selection and random mutation in computer programs to harness the power of Darwinian evolution in computers. As he told Proffitt, "What's interesting is that I don't always know how they work, I just know they do. Using this method we've been able to come up with code which is better than any human has been able to write." Indeed, Hillis looks beyond artificial technology and bio-computers to a world in which even ordinary objects, such as chairs and tables, are grown rather than built.

While Hillis's interests into computers have taken him into the highly complex areas of artificial intelligence and biological engineering, the actual workings of a computer are not really that complex, as he explains in The Pattern on the Stone: The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work, "a delightful all-in-one introduction to computer science," according to Booklist reviewer Gilbert Taylor. Instead of focusing on Boolean logic and the inner workings of computer components, Hollis uses sorting socks and playing tic-tac-toe to introduce readers to the methods computers use to perform their functions. From there, he goes on to describe how the actual construction of computers is basically just a wiring or an engineering problem. After this, he goes "step-by-step from computer logic to programming to memory and compression," as Library Journal reviewer William Baer explained. The ease of mastering these principles may even surprise some programmers. As Whole Earth contributor Stewart Brand noted, "Computer basics are so simple, subtle, and potent that they elude even many professionals. Ingenious inventions themselves, they are powerful tools of invention on a par with language and mathematics." While some of the discussions on quantum mechanics inevitably grow complex, diagrams and charts throughout help even the most inexperienced reader grasp the fundamental concepts. In addition, a Publishers Weekly reviewer noted, "The final chapter offers an absorbing commentary on artificial intelligence and the future of computing—which can only benefit from a helpful and succinct volume like this one."