General

Hello, my name is Geert Masureel. I was born in 1970 and I live in Belgium.

I like my privacy and you will not find much about me online. If you do, it will most likely concern artificial intelligence.

Social media is for sure not my forte ! I can be a loner from time to time.

I love what I do and I'm good at it !

And what do I do ? Well, whatever is required at the moment to achieve my goal : creating a human-like artificial brain, empathy included.

It can be creating a website (like the one you are looking at for instance), programming, engineering, playing CEO or whatever is required at that moment !

I'm patient and a little stubborn (a lot according to others, but they are of course full of sh.t ). For instance, I have worked 20 years full-time on the concept and more than 30 years in total, as you can read further on.

I'm inpatient, a contradiction with the previous statement, I know ! I like to go forward and preferably fast ! Most people find it difficult to follow my pace and that can make me inpatient sometimes.

I learn from my mistakes and I have made my fair share of them. Luckily for me, so far none I really regret !

I'm autodidactic and I have no fancy degrees and I never needed one. School and I have never proved to be a good combination ...

Why artificial intelligence ?

In 1984 (nothing to do with Orwell's book), At the age of 14, a long time before I discovered being high gifted (in 1997, at the age of 27, and Mensa Belgium Member since then), I struggled with the fact that everybody else was so different in mindset than I was (at that moment I hadn't figured out that it was me who was the odd man out).

At a certain moment it became almost unbearable and I realized I needed to find a way to figure out how 'the others' were thinking. First I started reading the classical psychology books, but didn't find real answers. No, I needed to dig deeper and at that moment my actual search truly began.

It was around that same time "Knight Rider" was on TV as well and I was not that interested in the car as such (had it been a Lambo (Canonball) or Ferrari (Magnum), it would have been different), but KITT, "the brain", that was my hero ! It was also one of the first times I saw that emotions would probably be needed to have real intelligence on a computer. Although it was "just TV", and "KITT" did not have emotions as such, a number of decisions he had to take could not have been taken without emotions ! I have to admit that at that time, I was pretty sure it was possible to circumvent these "irrational things" and base all on ratio and logic. I forgive myself as I was just a kid !

At the age of 17 I discovered the personal computer and instantly knew we would be best friends for life ! It didn't take long to see the similarities in the working of the brain and the way a computer operates and at the age of 22 I had a first (very primitive) scheme how it could work, but there were so many necessary missing links like emotions, fear, appreciation, motivation and feelings that I decided to make it my primary target to exactly figure out how a thinking process similar to ours could work on a computer. As of that moment it became clear to me that I had to continue and even intensify my search on how the human brain works to obtain the key to success.

Remember that at that time not that much was known about our brains (brain scans were not used like now). I still had to discover all myself and that kept me busy the following years.

In 1995, at the age of 25, I had figured it out for over 80 percent and although I had made ‘AI’ models before, it is around that age that I made a first concept with real potential. Looking back how much was still missing, I feel pity with others who still have to discover all of this !

In 2007 I was convinced I finally knew it all and had answers to all questions and started an Open Source project "The Artificial Brain" (no longer exists). BTW, in the question "Why not make it Open Source" in FAQ General, you find more details why Artintelli will not make the code Open Source.

In short, the absolute main reason why I did not succeed at that moment was the way I looked at how to implement emotions (all emotions can be viewed as derivatives of fear - still very correct this day). Unfortunately, this approach did not enable me to create a real engine for it, something absolutely required. It only fired a couple of times and sputtered a lot. But, yes, in order to have this engine, this driving force, originating mainly out of (auto) motivation, I needed these 'stupid emotions' ! Like so many times before, this implied that I had to go back to the drawing table and start allover again !

A number of people have asked me if that did not discourage me and it did to some extent. I knew I was on the right track and that kept me going. So, it was mainly my pride, ego and intellect which received an uppercut ! I had come forward public with the project and I could not deliver ! I promised myself I would not make that mistake a second time and focused on ways of finding a concept for this 'engine', emotions included.

It took me five years to see clarity and another five years to figure out the details, another couple of years to learn game engines inside out and here is where I am now. Finally, all puzzle pieces match together and I know I can deliver !

This project defines who and what I am as a person and it will not be a surprise that my commitment in this project is extremely high ! Since 2000, I have been working full-time (rather day and night) for 20 years on the concept, sponsored by myself and the support of my lovely wife !

Cheers,

Geert Masureel
Chairman and founder of Artintelli