Blaise Agüera y Arcas (born August 28, 1975) is an American

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 ...

(AI) researcher, software engineer, software architect, and author. He is vice president and fellow at Google Research, where he leads a team that conducts basic research in AI and builds AI-based products and technologies. He also founded the Artists and Machine Intelligence program at Google, which creates art by pairing machine intelligence engineers with artists. Before he joined Google in 2013, Agüera y Arcas was an engineer at

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

and the architect of

Bing Maps Bing Maps (previously Live Search Maps, Windows Live Maps, Windows Live Local, and MSN Virtual Earth) is a web mapping service provided as a part of Microsoft's Bing suite of search engines and powered by the Bing Maps Platform framework which al ...

and Bing Mobile. Agüera y Arcas has published scientific articles, essays, op-eds, and the books ''Ubi Sunt'' in 2022 and ''Who Are We Now?'' in 2023''.'' He appears regularly at TED.

Early life and education

Blaise Agüera y Arcas was born in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence () is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Rhode Island, most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The county seat of Providence County, Rhode Island, Providence County, it is o ...

to a

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

father and an American mother. He grew up in

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

. As a teenager, Agüera y Arcas interned with the U.S. Navy research center in

Bethesda, Maryland Bethesda () is an unincorporated, census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. Located just northwest of Washington, D.C., it is a major business and government center of the Washington metropolitan region ...

, where he reprogrammed the guidance software for aircraft carriers to improve their stability at sea, which helped to reduce seasickness among sailors. In 1998 Agüera y Arcas graduated from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

where he received a B.A. in physics.

Career

In 2001, using computational techniques, Agüera y Arcas and

’s Scheide Librarian Paul Needham published their findings that the

punchcutting Punchcutting is a craft used in traditional typography to cut letter punches in steel as the first stage of making metal type. Steel punches in the shape of the letter would be used to stamp matrices into copper, which were locked into a mould sh ...

method for mass-producing movable type attributed to

Johannes Gutenberg Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg ( – 3 February 1468) was a German inventor and Artisan, craftsman who invented the movable type, movable-type printing press. Though movable type was already in use in East Asia, Gutenberg's inven ...

was likely invented decades after Gutenberg’s Bible, and by a different inventor.

Seadragon

In 2003, Agüera y Arcas founded Sand Codex, later renamed Seadragon Software. He moved to

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

in 2004 to accommodate his wife's new role at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

. In 2004, he devised a computational method for the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

to create color composite images of almost two thousand negatives by

Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky ( rus, Сергей Михайлович Прокудин-Горский, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ prɐˈkudʲɪn ˈɡorskʲɪj, a=ru-Prokudin-Gorskii.ogg; – September 27, 1944) was ...

Microsoft

In 2006, Agüera y Arcas sold Seadragon to Microsoft Live Labs. The technology was used to develop

Silverlight Microsoft Silverlight is a discontinued application framework designed for writing and running rich internet applications, similar to Adobe's runtime, Adobe Flash. While early versions of Silverlight focused on streaming media, later version ...

, Pivot, Photosynth and the standalone cross-platform Seadragon application for iPhone and iPad. Slate called Photosynth "the best thing to happen to digital photography since the digital camera". At

, Agüera y Arcas was the architect leading

and Bing Mobile and was named a Distinguished Engineer in 2011. He collaborated with

Ricoh is a Japanese multinational imaging and electronics company. It was founded by the now-defunct commercial division of the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (Riken) known as the ''Riken Concern'', on 6 February 1936 as . Ricoh's hea ...

to make the Theta, a 360° camera whose captured content displayed in Photosynth. While at

, Agüera y Arcas suggested that technology should be designed for women. He cited a gap between the extent to which technology is designed for women and the market opportunity women represent, given trends in graduation rates and earnings.

Google

In 2013, Agüera y Arcas left Microsoft to lead a new machine intelligence effort at

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

, along with programs in

computer vision Computer vision tasks include methods for image sensor, acquiring, Image processing, processing, Image analysis, analyzing, and understanding digital images, and extraction of high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical ...

and

computational photography Computational photography refers to digital image capture and processing techniques that use digital computation instead of optical processes. Computational photography can improve the capabilities of a camera, or introduce features that were no ...

. His departure from Microsoft for Google generated a press cycle, with articles appearing in publications that included

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

Fast Company ''Fast Company'' is an American business magazine published monthly in print and online, focusing on technology, business, and design. It releases six print issues annually. History ''Fast Company'' was founded in November 1995 by Alan Webb ...

International Business Times The ''International Business Times'' is an American online newspaper that publishes five national editions in four languages. The publication, sometimes called ''IBTimes'' or ''IBT'', offers news, opinion and editorial commentary on business and ...

, and ValueWalk. As of 2016, he was working on projects that add

deep learning Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that focuses on utilizing multilayered neural networks to perform tasks such as classification, regression, and representation learning. The field takes inspiration from biological neuroscience a ...

mobile devices A mobile device or handheld device is a computer small enough to hold and operate in hand. Mobile devices are typically battery-powered and possess a flat-panel display and one or more built-in input devices, such as a touchscreen or keypad. Mod ...

. He founded the Artists and Machine Intelligence program, which fuses machine intelligence and art. The program's first public exhibit was on February 26, 2016 at the Gray Area, where Agüera y Arcas was the keynote speaker. On June 1, 2016, the program held the MAMI (Music, Art, and Machine Intelligence) show. In 2021, Agüera y Arcas published an opinion on his experience with the latest generation

large language model A large language model (LLM) is a language model trained with self-supervised machine learning on a vast amount of text, designed for natural language processing tasks, especially language generation. The largest and most capable LLMs are g ...

s in the form of AI chatbot

LaMDA The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) is a drama school located in Hammersmith, London. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest specialist drama school in the British Isles and a founding member of the Federation of Drama Schools. In ...

stating that "no objective answer is possible to the question of when an 'it' becomes a 'who'."

Publications

Books

* ''Ubi Sunt (Hat & Beard Press, Oct. 25, 2022) ISBN 978-1-95-512513-0'' * ''Who Are We Now? (Hat & Beard Press, Dec. 19, 2023) ISBN 978-1-95-512530-7''

TED Talks

Honors & Awards

In 2008, Agüera y Arcas was named one of

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "''The''" in its name on April 23, 1998, under then pu ...

's Innovators Under 35 TR35.

has named Agüera y Arcas one of the "Most Creative People in Business" in 2009 and in 2014. In 2022, Agüera y Arcas’ book, ''Ubi Sunt'', won

AIGA The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) is a professional organization for design. Its members practice all forms of communication design, including graphic design, typography, interaction design, user experience, branding and identity. The ...

’s 50 Books , 50 Covers award.

References

External links

Reconstructing Prokudin-Gorskii's Color Photography in Software
2004

2008
TR35 profile
2008
@blaiseaguera
Twitter account
Blaise Agüera y Arcas at Medium
Blogs 2016-2022
Style is Violence blogBlaise Agüera y Arcas at Google

Virtual International Authority File entry
* *
"How PhotoSynth can connect the world's images" (TED2007)
*
"Augmented-reality maps" (TED2010)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aguera y Arcas, Blaise American software engineers 1975 births Living people Princeton University alumni Google employees Google Fellows Microsoft employees Engineers from Mexico City