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We are delighted to announce that Peter J. Bentley, Honorary Professor and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Computer Science at University College London (UCL), has been elected an Academician of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness (WAAC) in recognition of his systematic contributions to bio-inspired evolutionary computation, self-organizing systems, and artificial immune computation.
Over the years, Professor Bentley has pursued a unifying theme of “evolution and self-organization,” building a chain of theoretical and engineering evidence from evolutionary design and creative evolutionary systems to artificial immune systems (AIS): in Evolutionary Design by Computers (Morgan Kaufmann, 1999), which he edited, he systematically argued for the generative power of evolutionary algorithms in engineering and product design; in Creative Evolutionary Systems (Academic Press / Morgan Kaufmann, 2002), he broadened evolutionary-generative methods to creative domains including art, music, and architecture; at GECCO (2001) and in subsequent papers (2001–2002), together with collaborators he proposed AIS for network intrusion detection, integrating negative selection, clonal selection, and gene-library evolution and developing the Dynamic Clonal Selection (DynamiCS) framework; subsequent surveys systematically reviewed immune-inspired intrusion detection, highlighting the self-organizing, distributed, and robust properties of these approaches. Taken together, these works provide testable computational models and experimental pathways for understanding “consciousness cues” in artificial systems—such as selective response, resource allocation, and global coordination—and point to practical routes toward scalable, resilient intelligent behavior.
- Global Collaboration and Academic Ecosystem
Academicians of the World Academy for Artificial Consciousness hail from institutions such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, the University of California, the French Academy of Sciences, the University of Padua, the University of Queensland, Columbia University, and the University of Exeter. Honorary Academicians come from a wide range of countries and regions, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Spain, and China. In addition, leading scientists from prominent research institutes and technology companies—such as Google, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and ZEEKR—also participate.
- About WAAC
The World Academy for Artificial Consciousness (https://www.waac.ac/) is a global academic institution established in Paris in 2025. Its mission is to advance frontier research and international collaboration in artificial consciousness through the integration of science, technology, and philosophy. The Academy publishes open research, policy recommendations, evaluation standards, and more. The current President is Academician Yucong Duan, and the Secretary-General is Dr. Yingbo Li. The Honorary Academician List: On May 3, 2025, WAAC released its first batch of Top 100 Honorary Academicians, recognizing scholars who have made foundational or leading contributions to the theory of artificial consciousness.