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    The simple, elegant, and inevitable path to human level machine intelligence and beyond, the Creativity Machine Paradigm, US Patent 5,659,666 and all subsequent foreign and divisional filings.

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Stephen L. Thaler, Ph.D.

Brightest Technical Moments:

Diamonds - While employed as a materials scientist for aerospace giant McDonnell Douglas in 1986, Thaler invented the fastest diamond deposition technique in the world. Using high-energy lasers borrowed from the 'Star Wars' initiative, Thaler was able to grow single crystals of diamond as well as convert the native carbon within tungsten carbide and high-speed steel tools to the diamond phase.

Death - In 1992, Thaler shocked the world with bizarre experiments in which the neurons within artificial neural networks were randomly destroyed. Guess what? The nets first relived all of their experiences (i.e., life review) and then, within advanced stages of destruction, generated novel experience. From this research emerged both a compelling model of near-death experience (NDE) and the basis of truly creative and contemplative artificial intelligence.

Cognition, Consciousness, and Creativity - After witnessing some really great ideas emerge from the near-death experience of artificial neural networks, Thaler decided to add additional nets to automatically observe and filter for any emerging brainstorms. From this network architecture was born the Creativity Machine (US Patent 5,659,666). Thaler has proposed such neural cascade as a canonical model of consciousness in which the former net manifests what can only be called a stream of consciousness while the second net develops an attitude about the cognitive turnover within the first net (i.e., the subjective feel of consciousness). In this theory, all aspects of both human and animal cognition are modeled in terms of confabulation generation. Thaler is therefore both the founder and architect of confabulation theory and the patent holder for all neural systems that contemplate, invent, and discover via such confabulations. 

Current Position: President & CEO, Imagination Engines, Inc.

Undergraduate Education: B.A. Westminster College, Summa Cum Laude, Majored in chemistry, physics, mathematics, and russian.

Graduate Education: Masters work at UCLA in chemistry, Ph.D. in physics, University of Missouri-Columbia.

Work Experience: 1973-1974, Production Chemist for Mallinckrodt Nuclear, 1981-95, Principal Technical Specialist, McDonnell Douglas, 1995-Present, President and CEO, Imagination Engines, Inc. Thaler also serves as Principal Scientist for Sytex, Inc.

Thaler has worked diverse technology areas that have included (1) nuclear radiation vulnerability and hardening, (2) high-energy laser interactions with solids, (3) electromagnetic signatures, (4) laser-driven growth of diamond and other ultra-hard materials, (4) laser ultrasonics in the non-destructive evaluation of aircraft structures, (5) the use of artificial intelligence techniques for structural monitoring, and currently (7) applied and theoretical artificial neural network technology.

Key Patents: Unclassified patents by Thaler are divided between laser-driven coating technologies and foundational neural patents that include the Creativity Machine (U.S. 5,659,666) and Non-Algorithmically Implemented Neural` Networks (U.S. 5,845,271).

  1. JP4282760, 3/27/2009, Device for the autonomous generation of useful information
  2. US07454388, 11/18/2008, Device for the autonomous bootstrapping of useful information
  3. CA2199969, 04/15/2008, Device for the autonomous generation of useful information
  4. CA2243120, 10/18/2005, Neural network based data examination system and method
  5. IN196315, 05/19/2006, An artificial neural network-based data monitoring system
  6. IN193381, 07/17/2004, Device for the autonomous generation of useful information
  7. US6356884, 03/12/2002, System for the Autonomous Generation of Useful information
  8. AU739502, 01/24/2002, Neural network based database scanning system and method
  9. EP 0786106, 12/06/2001, Device for the autonomous generation of useful information
  10. US06115701, 09/05/2000, Device for the autonomous generation of useful information
  11. AU716593, 03/02/2000, Non-Algorithmically implemented artificial neural networks and components thereof
  12. US6018727, 01/25/2000, Device for the autonomous generation of useful information
  13. US6014653, 01/11/2000, Non-Algorithmically implemented artificial neural networks and components thereof
  14. GB2308476, 12/29/1999, Device for the autonomous generation of useful information
  15. GB2336227, 12/29/1999, Device for the autonomous generation of useful information
  16. US05852815, 12/22/1998, Neural network based prototyping system and method
  17. US05852816, 12/22/1998, Neural network based database scanning system
  18. US05845271, 12/01/1998, Non-Algorithmically implemented artificial neural networks and components thereof
  19. US05814152, 09/29/1998, Apparatus for coating a substrate
  20. AU689677, 07/16/1998, Device for the autonomous generation of useful information
  21. US05659666, 08/19/1997, Device for the autonomous generation of useful information
  22. US05612099, 03/18/1997, Method and apparatus for coating a substrate
  23. US05547716, 08/20/1996, Laser absorption wave deposition process and apparatus
  24. US04981717, 01/01/1991, Diamond like coating and method of forming

Clientele: The past and current customer base of Thaler's technologies include

  • The US Air Force Research Laboratory, Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
  • Munitions Directorate, Eglin Air Force Base
  • NIST
  • Advanced Refractory Technologies, Buffalo, NY
  • Bekaert, NV, Belgium
  • Basic Research Corporation, LaJolla, CA
  • The Gillette Co., Boston, MA
  • Magna-Donnelly Electronics, Holly, MI
  • Sytex, Inc.

Major Applications of Thaler's Artificial Intelligence Technology: Of course, if Thaler is correct about his technology (i.e., US Patent 5,659,666) providing a working model of creative human cognition, then we can expect the application of these novel AI techniques to every aspect of human endeavor. Appropriately, all that Thaler's neural network technology can do is synonomous with all that we as humans do. Pursuing this kind of blue sky thinking, we can expect these virtual machines to engage not only in technical endeavors, but in the generation of new art and music. Further, because the imagination engine operates in the same way as human internal imagery, we can also expect this technology to lay the foundation for a radical paradigm shift in the entertainment industry. We also anticipate that the Creativity Machine will become the major paradigm in robotic/android control schemes.

Presently realized applications of Thaler's neural network technology include:

  • autonomous materials discovery
  • the invention of products and services (i.e., personal hygiene products)
  • product optimization
  • neural networks that write their own computer code
  • compression/encryption
  • control systems for chemical vapor deposition reactors
  • autonomous classification
  • self-prototyping devices
  • artificial life

Key Press

"Daisy, Daisy" Do computers have near-death experience, Scientific American, May 1993.

Dying by design, IEEE Expert, Dec.1993.

The ghost in the machine, The Economist, 8 May 1993.

As They Lay Dying ... Near the end, artificial neural networks become creative, Scientific American, May, 1995.

Neural Networks That Create and Discover, PC AI, May/June 1996.

Creativity machine granted a patent, MSN UK News, August 1997.

The Creativity Machine, New Scientist, 20 January 1996.

Self-Training artificial Neural Networks, PC AI, Nov/Dec 1996

Computers that create: No hallucination, Aerospace America, January 1997

Attack of the Genius Robot Cockroach Swarm, DefenseTech.org, September, 2006.

Robot Restraint, Aviation Week, p11, May, 2008

Stephen Thaler's Imagination Machines, The Futurist, July-August 2009 Vol. 43.

Selected Publications

"Virtual Input Phenomena" Within the Death of a Simple Pattern Associator, Neural Networks, 8(1), 55–65.

Death of a gedanken creature, Journal of Near-Death Studies, 13(3), Spring 1995.

Neural Nets That Create and Discover, PC AI , May/June, 16–21.

Is Neuronal Chaos the Source of Stream of Consciousness? In Proceedings of the World Congress on Neural Networks, (WCNN’96), Lawrence Erlbaum, Mawah, NJ.

A Proposed Symbolism for Network-Implemented Discovery Processes, In Proceedings of the World Congress on Neural Networks, (WCNN’96), Lawrence Erlbaum, Mawah, NJ.

Autonomous Materials Discovery Via Spreadsheet-Implemented Neural Network Cascades, Journal of the Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society, JOM-e, 49(4) [http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9704/Thaler].

Creativity via network cavitation – an architecture, implementation, and results, Adaptive Distributive Parallel Computing Symposium, Dayton, Ohio, 8-9 August, 1996.

Principles and application of the self-training artificial neural network, Adaptive Distributive Parallel Computing Symposium, Dayton, Ohio, 8-9 August, 1996.

"Databots", Adaptive Distributive Parallel Computing Symposium, Dayton, Ohio, 8-9 August, 1996.

Self-Training artificial Neural Networks, PC AI, Nov/Dec 1996.

The death dream and near-death darwinism, Journal of Near-Death Studies, 15(1), Fall 1996.

The fragmentation of the universe and the devolution of consciousness, U.S. Library of Congress, Registration Number TXu000775586 / January, 1997.

A quantitative model of seminal cognition: the creativity machine paradigm, Proceedings of the Mind II Conference, Dublin, Ireland, 1997.

Predicting ultra-hard binary compounds via cascaded auto- and hetero-associative neural newtorks, Journal of Alloys and Compounds, 279(1998), 47-59.

With Conrad, D.M, Real-Time Fault Detection Using Auto-associative Filtering, AIRTC, Oct. ’98.

The emerging intelligence and its critical look at us, Journal of Near-Death Studies, 17(1), Fall 1998.

The Warhead Design Creativity Machine, Weapon Systems Technology Information Analysis Center, Volume 3, Number 1, December 2001.

LITMUS - Live Intrusion Tracking via multiple unsupervised STANNOs, PC AI, Jan/Feb 2002.

Neural Networks 101 - Servo Magazine, April, 2005.

With Furrer, D., Neural Network Modeling, Advanced Materials & Processes, Nov. 2005.

With Patrick, M. Clinton and Chavis, Katherine S., "Demonstration of Self-Training Autonomous Neural Networks in Space Vehicle Docking Simulations," 2007 IEEE Aerospace Conference Proceedings, IEEEAC paper #1409, March 2007.

Thalamocortical Algorithms in Space! The Building of Conscious Machines and the Lessons Thereof, In the Proceedings of World Future 2010: Sustainable Futures, Strategies, and Technologies, July 8-10, 2010, Boston, MA.


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