Toby Walsh is a British computer scientist who is Chief Scientist at UNSW.ai, the AI Institute of

UNSW Sydney The University of New South Wales (UNSW) is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was established in 1949. The university comprises seven faculties, through which it offers bachelor's, master's and docto ...

. He is a Laureate fellow, and

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

in the

UNSW School of Computer Science and Engineering The UNSW School of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) is part of the UNSW Faculty of Engineering and was founded in 1991 out of the former Department of Computer Science within the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.Hamp ...

at the

University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW) is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was established in 1949. The university comprises seven faculties, through which it offers bachelor's, master's and docto ...

and

Data61 The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government agency that is responsible for scientific research and its commercial and industrial applications. CSIRO works with leading organisations arou ...

(formerly

NICTA NICTA (formerly named National ICT Australia Ltd) was Australia's Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Research Centre of Excellence and is now known as CSIRO's Data61. The term "Centre of Excellence" is common marketing terminology ...

). He has served as Scientific Director of

, Australia's centre of excellence for ICT research. He is noted for his work in artificial intelligence, especially in the areas of

social choice Social choice theory is a branch of welfare economics that extends the theory of rational choice to collective decision-making. Social choice studies the behavior of different mathematical procedures ( social welfare functions) used to combine i ...

constraint programming Constraint programming (CP) is a paradigm for solving combinatorial problems that draws on a wide range of techniques from artificial intelligence, computer science, and operations research. In constraint programming, users declaratively state t ...

and

propositional satisfiability In logic and computer science, the Boolean satisfiability problem (sometimes called propositional satisfiability problem and abbreviated SATISFIABILITY, SAT or B-SAT) asks whether there exists an interpretation that satisfies a given Boolean f ...

. He has served on the Executive Council of the

Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) is an international Learned society, scientific society devoted to promote research in, and responsible use of, artificial intelligence. AAAI also aims to increase public under ...

Career

He received an

M.A. A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...

degree in theoretical physics and mathematics from the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

and a

M.Sc. A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medicine ...

and

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

degree in artificial intelligence from the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

. He has held research positions in Australia, England, Ireland, Italy, France, Germany, Scotland, and Sweden. He has been Editor-in-Chief of the ''

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research The ''Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research'' (''JAIR'') is an open access peer-reviewed scientific journal covering research in all areas of artificial intelligence. History It was established in 1993 as one of the first scientific journa ...

'', and of ''AI Communications''. He was chaired several conferences in the area of

including the

International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence The International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) is a conference in the field of artificial intelligence. The conference series has been organized by the nonprofit IJCAI Organization since 1969.Jointly sponsored by the IJCAI O ...

. He is Editor of the Handbook of Constraint Programming, and of the Handbook of Satisfiability. He proposed the idea of Turing red flag laws, which require any AI system to identify itself as a computer program to prevent human confusion. In 2015, he helped release an open letter calling for a ban on offensive autonomous weapons that attracted over 20,000 signatures. He later gave a talk at TEDxBerlin on this topic. In 2017, he organized an open letter calling for a ban signed by over 100 founders of AI and Robotics companies. Also in 2017, he organized a letter to the Prime Minister of Australia calling for Australia to negotiate towards a ban signed by over one hundred researchers from Australia working on artificial intelligence. In 2022, he was one of 121 prominent Australians banned from travelling to Russia indefinitely for his outspoken criticism of the use of AI by the Russian military. In 2018, he chaired the Expert Working Group of the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA) preparing a Horizon Scanning Report on the "''Deployment of Artificial Intelligence and what it presents for Australia"'' at the request of Australia’s Chief Scientist, Dr Alan Finkel, and on behalf of the Commonwealth Science Council. Additionally, he was interviewed on

ABC Comedy ABC Family is an Australian free-to-air television channel owned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and part of its ABC Television network. The channel broadcasts a range of family and teen entertainment programming. The channel oper ...

Tom Ballard Thomas Ballard (1630–1689) was a colonial Virginia landowner and politician. Thomas or Tom Ballard may also refer to: * Thomas Ballard Jr. (1654–1710), member of the Virginia House of Burgesses * Thomas Ballard (MP for Coventry), member of P ...

, discussing the "robot revolution". He is the author of four books on artificial intelligence for a general audience: ''"It's Alive!: Artificial Intelligence from the Logic Piano to Killer Robots"'', which looks at the history and present of AI, ''"2062: The World that AI Made"'', which looks at the potential impact AI will have on our society, and ''"Machines Behaving Badly: the Morality of AI"'', which looks at the ethical challenges of AI. His latest book is Faking It: Artificial intelligence in a Human World. All four books are published by Black Inc. The books are available in ten different languages: Chinese, English, German, Korean, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Taiwanese, Turkish and Vietnamese.

Honors and awards

In 2023, Walsh won the Celestino

Eureka Prize The Eureka Prizes are awarded annually by the Australian Museum, Sydney, to recognise individuals and organisations who have contributed to science and the understanding of science in Australia. They were founded in 1990 following a suggestion ...

for Promoting Understanding of Science for his work on artificial intelligence. In 2020, he was elected a Fellow of the ACM and a

Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (FAAAS) is an honor accorded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to distinguished persons who are members of the Association. Fellows are elected ...

. In 2018, he was runner up in the Arms Control Association's annual Person/s of the Year Award. In 2016, he was elected a Fellow of the

Australian Academy of Science The Australian Academy of Science was founded in 1954 by a group of distinguished Australians, including Australian Fellows of the Royal Society of London. The first president was Sir Mark Oliphant. The academy is modelled after the Royal Soci ...

, won the NSW Premier's Prize for Excellence in Engineering and ICT, and was made Scientia Professor at UNSW. In 2015, the Association for Constraint Programming presented him with their Research Excellence Award, which identifies and honours the most influential people in the field. In 2014, he won a

Humboldt Prize The Humboldt Research Award (), also known informally as the Humboldt Prize, is an award given by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany to internationally renowned scientists and scholars who work outside of Germany in recognition of ...

. In 2008, he was elected a Fellow of the

for "significant and sustained contributions to automated deduction and constraint programming, and for extraordinary service to the AI community". In 2003, he was elected a Fellow of the

European Association for Artificial Intelligence The European Association for Artificial Intelligence (EurAI), formerly European Co-ordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence (ECCAI), is the representative body for the European artificial intelligence community. Overview EurAI was establis ...

in recognition of "significant, sustained contributions to the field of artificial intelligence".

References

External links

Toby Walsh's homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Walsh, Toby Artificial intelligence researchers British computer scientists Australian computer scientists Fellows of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Alumni of the University of Cambridge Living people Fellows of the European Association for Artificial Intelligence Year of birth missing (living people)