Hi, I'm James
Co-founder & CEO @ Artificial Societies
ex-ML @ Yonder Credit Card
Patron of Selwyn College, Cambridge
I enjoy building bridges
between disciplines and peoples,
so look around, drop me a message.
Publications
Cited by 150 academic papers. Google Scholar.
Notable Work:
Artificial Intelligence Chatbots Mimic Human Collective Behaviours. 2024, Preprint.
Social Media Behaviour is Associated with Vaccine Hesitancy. 2022, PNAS Nexus. Read here.
A New Adaptive Sampling Algorithm Based on Multi-Armed Bandits for Experiments with Exponential Rewards. 2023, Intelligent Computing. Read here.
Previously
Yonder Credit Card. Data Science and Machine Learning. 2022-2024.
Yonder is the coolest startup in the UK, "the Monzo of reward credit cards", and the "Best Newcomer" by British Bank Awards. I joined Yonder in 2022 as its first (and until my departure in late 2024, the only) Data Scientist and "ML guy", payroll number #17.
I developed and deployed Yonder's first 5 versions of acquisition lending decision ML systems, its first 2 versions of behavioural ML systems for portfolio lending decision, its state-of-the-art Open Banking salary estimator, its language-model-based recommendation system, and its internal team dynamic optimisation algorithms.
University of Cambridge. B.A. Hons. Behavioural Sciences. 2019 - 2022.
Overall First Class Honours; Dissertation First with Distinction.
Key Courses: Data Science; Evolution; Neuroscience; Social Dynamics.
Extracurriculars: Rowing, table tennis, events, parties, and lots of dinners.
Currently...
Artificial Societies
I've been studying societies for my entire adult life. At Cambridge, I found a love in combining technology and humanity to ask: Can computers predict individual and collective human behaviours? I am fortunate to be now working on this life-long passion full time, as the co-founder and CEO of Artificial Societies.
What do we do at Artificial Societies?
We simulate societies. If you have a target audience, we will build you a simulation where you can test how your ideas will land - like your messages, product propositions, or even policies - before you launch them into the real world. Our mission is to scale collective innovation. Our vision is a world where every product, policy, or message is developed and tested in Artificial Societies, before being launched into the real world.
While Artificial Societies is not a research group, I am fortunate to have continued academic work with my mentors in my spare time, now collaborating with researchers from Oxbridge, NYU, and UCL. Together, we research on the potentials and limitations of LLM-based artificial societies, the topologies and dynamics of online communities, and how we might find ways to maintain open debates while bridging social divisions.
Bridging Disciplines
When I got my first paycheque (thanks Yonder), I pledged to donate 10% of my disposable income to support interdisciplinary explorations:
The James K. He Scholarship is dedicated to support data-driven, interdisciplinary research at the undergraduate level. Open to students of ALL subjects at Selwyn College Cambridge, with Preference given to projects from disciplines with limited fundings.
Why did a 21-year-old set up a scholarship?
In most of human history, innovators are those who love building bridges, those who refused to be defined by a single way of thinking. Sadly, there is hardly any funding in the UK that supports innovative, cross-discipline research, especially for undergrads.
So, I decided to put money where it counts - I've enjoyed the self-sovereignty of not being defined by a single discipline, and I hope to build a community of innovators who refuse to be defined.
Wow, thanks for reading this far!
You should get in touch.