Jean-Louis Dessalles

Jean-Louis Dessalles is a Professor at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris, affiliated with the School of Computer Science and the Department of Cognitive Sciences. His research focuses on the intersection of cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and artificial intelligence, particularly the evolutionary origins of language, computational models of human cognition, and algorithmic information theory. He is a co-founder of the Simplicity Theory framework, which explains cognitive processes through principles of complexity minimization.

Key contributions include books such as Why We Talk: The Evolutionary Origins of Language and Des Intelligences Très Artificielles, which explore language evolution and AI limitations. His work spans interdisciplinary areas like social signaling, causal reasoning in cyber-physical systems, and the philosophical implications of consciousness and responsibility.

Recent research emphasizes applications of simplicity theory to AI, causal learning in smart environments, and the biological foundations of communication. Dessalles has pioneered methods for explainable AI in complex systems, focusing on decentralized architectures for smart homes and urban traffic management.