Dr David White

Artificial Life, Agent-Based Modelling & AI Simulation

Bridging the gap between biological complexity and computational intelligence

Agent-Based Modelling (ABM)

I develop ABMs to simulate complex adaptive systems, such as marine ecosystems and economic markets. My work, including the ‘Virtual Scylla’ project and recent economic crash simulations, utilizes decentralized agent logic to predict emergent behavior in volatile environments.

Agentic AI

My current research is focussing on how ABMs can using Agentic AI reasoning to make econonmic decisions… watch this space.

Key Projects

The Virtual Scylla: A “serious game” leveraging artificial life to simulate marine biology on the HMS Scylla reef.

Keele Pain Recorder: A validated mobile health app (created with £3.5m funding context) utilizing secure data collection for musculoskeletal conditions.

In My Boat: A community-driven AI simulation exploring climate change impacts on marine life using Participatory Action Research.

Selected Publications

Exploring the Intersection Between Neural Architecture Search and Continual Learning (IEEE Transactions, 2024)

Adaptive functions in an agent-based model of an economic system (Adaptive Behavior, 2023)

Development and validation of a pain monitoring app (BMC Medical Informatics, 2019)

Research Background

My publications are detailed in the publications tab ^^^^. My research has revolved around games / VR, but mostly Artificial Life which includes developing Agent Based Models. During my PhD I researched how simulations responded to varying levels and types of complexity. This involved simulating models of marine biology (starfish / algae / mussells) and comparing the results when high and low resulution data was included, or when large and small populations were simulated.

More recently I have been creating simulations of market based economies and simulating distruptive events. This has the aim of showing that agent-based decision making can show more resilience than system (i.e. government) decision making.

I also supervise PhDs students who are typically either researching AI: LLMs, ABMs, or more game focused: VR, gamification; or even both!: ABMs with gamification.

Industry Background

I have been working in and around the games industry for 20+ years. I principally write in C++, but have also developed apps in Java, C#, and Objective C, which means that I can pick up new languages fairly quickly. I have developed games engines for various platforms (PC / Mac / Android / iOS) in OpenGL, OpenGL ES and several versions of DirectX. I have worked with VR since 2000, and AR from 2012. In 2015 I developed an app called Big Red Arrow. I wrote my own AR code to avoid relying on 3rd party licenses (BRA probably needs updating on both iOS and Android, this is on my very long todo list!).

I started out at Virtual Presence (now Virtalis) working on a VR simulator for the Ministry of Defence - specifically, a 20mm anti-aircraft gun simulator. VR was expensive in those days, £10,000 for a decent graphics card, and £80,000 for a VR headset! I then moved to Headfirst productions to work on the now cult game Call of Cthulhu. After a brief stint at Datel (creating tools for cheat codes for games) I started my PhD at Birmingham.

While at Birmingham I created my company, Secret Attic Software, and I also developed an ecological simulation game for the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth.

On completion of my PhD I joined the team at Astraware, developing games for the newly released iPhone and Android devices, including Astraware Mahjong which sold rather a lot of copies. I left Astraware to work full time building up my own company, which developed apps for organisations such as Keele University, the NHS, Coventry University and the British Army.