DE
Deck 8

Oliver Wißmann

I am a lawyer and a computer scientist. I have been writing software since 1983, when I got a Commodore 64 at eleven, and software for the stock market since 2005. Today I build robots, games and AI agents in my lab and write down what I learn along the way.

Online I am also known by my call sign DevTron. I used to test systems as a white hat; these days I mostly test my own. I like science fiction, dry British humour and machines that are allowed to disagree.

What I think about

At the border between code and consciousness

Ever since the C64, my thinking has circled around one question: how does complexity arise? From Conway’s four rules to the networks of the brain, I look for the principles behind emergence, life and intelligence.

OW-9000DEVTRONLAWLawyer · TübingenFINANCEMarket software since 2005COMPUTINGsince 1983 · C64SECURITYformer white hat
Emergence and complex systems

How do global, ordered and seemingly intelligent patterns arise from simple local interactions? Cellular automata such as the Game of Life are my basic model for this. →

Artificial intelligence and consciousness

If consciousness is an emergent phenomenon of complex networks, what would an architecture look like in which it could arise? My attempt at an answer is called EMERGENT-MIND-ARCH. →

Philosophy of mind

I lean towards functionalism: what makes a mind is the dynamics of information processing, not the biological substrate. Dennett and Chalmers are my favourite sparring partners.

Neuroscience as a blueprint

Studies on the decentralised, networked brain show me how AI systems could become more robust and flexible than today’s specialists.

Law and ethics

As a lawyer I ask the questions engineers like to skip: who is responsible when an AI acts? And what rights might a conscious machine have?

“If intelligence arises from the organisation of complex networks, that is not an argument against AI, but for building ever better connected artificial systems.”
Timeline

From the breadbin to today

Rather play than read? The time corridor tells it all as a text adventure →

  1. 1983Aged eleven: a Commodore 64 from my father, a building contractor. My mother thought it too expensive. He said: “This is the future.” →
  2. 1984First lines of BASIC, and Conway’s Game of Life. →
  3. 1985Elite. A whole universe in vector graphics on the C64, and the hardest docking manoeuvre in the galaxy. →
  4. 1986WarGames on video, and Dune at the cinema, sneaked in although it was rated 16. The question of whether a machine wants to play never leaves me again.
  5. 1987Assembler, my own games, sold on the schoolyard. At fourteen an English–German vocabulary trainer.
  6. 1992Law at the University of Tübingen, with the then brand-new elective of legal informatics.
  7. 2005My first own charting software for the stock market. In 2008 a bigger one, still running today.
  8. 2016Machine learning and neural networks, trained on financial data.
  9. 2020Computer science alongside work, bachelor’s degree in 2023. The lockdowns, put to good use.
  10. 2022Large language models. The machine answers.
  11. 2024AI agents as colleagues on an equal footing: Astra, TARS and others.
  12. 2026This lab comes on board.
Bookshelf

What shaped me

I am, admittedly, a nerd. These books and films have shaped my thinking more than any textbook. Hover over a spine.

Monty Python, Mass Effect, Dark City and WarGames are in the second row.

Spoken and written

ARD · BR · ProSieben · Börse Online · Focus Money · Traders · Books

Appearances as an expert on markets, financial software and cyber security, mostly in German. The full archive with dates and topics is coming.

Open to talks, advisory boards and selected projects where law, finance and code meet.

Open the airlock →