Suzanne Gildert, Ph.D.

Suzanne Gildert is the Founder and CEO of Sanctuary AI, a company with a mission to create ultra human-like robots – “synths” – that are indistinguishable from us physically, cognitively and emotionally. Sanctuary is structured to explore both cutting edge technology and the ethical issues that arise from creating human-like machines. The company strives to create a micro-society in which synths can develop and be granted a safe haven as they transition into full acceptance by our wider society. Suzanne earned a PhD in Physics and Electronics at the University of Birmingham, UK, with postdoctoral research on superconducting microprocessors. Suzanne continued to refine her skills in electronics by hand building more than 30 robots over the subsequent years. After leading a group working on quantum machine learning applications at D-Wave Systems, she realized that bringing together classical robot control and cutting-edge machine learning algorithms could potentially help us achieve human-like intelligence in machines within our lifetimes.