Denys George Irving

Who was Denys George Irving?

Denys George Irving, was born on 4 January 1944 in Colwyn Bay, North Wales.

He grew up in South London and was educated at Dulwich College, where he was awarded the Fawkes Memorial Scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics. After graduating in 1966 he went on to study at the London School of Economics, and was a graduate student in the Philosophy Ph.D. program at Columbia University, New York.

Whilst at Columbia in 1968, Denys was actively involved in student politics, notably during the student demonstrations in May, when he was prominent among a large number of students who occupied Fairweather Hall. It was at Columbia that Denys became interested in artificial intelligence and started working with computers. In December 1968 he wrote to his parents: "I have been working with computers this term and I have made pretty good progress so far and my plan is to try to get accepted by the Royal College of Art to do research into computer generated research and music." He acknowledged that "the chances are pretty slim.".