When I was a child, I wanted to be an inventor.
When I grew up, I became one — learning in the process that inventors were now called engineers, and that software was the most exciting thing to build in the increasingly digital world.
I’m fascinated by the use of technology to make things smarter, to encourage changes in culture and society. I’ve worked on software to change how we interact with music, with the XMMS2 music player, and an online music platform at MediaSP (for a while powering eircom MusicHub and ZIK.ca, both since defunct). Between 2012-2016, I worked for the Guardian to build their new editorial tools. In March 2016, I joined Google before moving on to DeepMind in January 2018, where I develop the platform, tools and infrastructure for machine-learning researchers.
I also like to experiment with ideas, the dreams or nightmares of changes to come. Most people call it science fiction. Most of the time, I would just read some, or publish some in the Angle Mort magazine I co-edit. On increasingly rare occasions, I would write some.
In parallel, I also write non-fiction on this website: essays about technology, society & culture; diaries of my travels; music, film and book reviews.
You can also find me on Twitter, Instagram, Flickr or Last.fm. If you’re code-inclined, I’ve even got a (no longer active) technical blog not far from here.
And if you want to get in touch, I’m Sébastien Cevey.