---
title: "Jeff Clune"
type: "entity"
entity_kind: "person"
status: "hub"
canonical_name: "Jeff Clune"
aliases: []
first_seen: "2026-08-20T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
connects_to: ["MAP-Elites","open-endedness","quality diversity","Jean-Baptiste Mouret","Microcosmos (artificial-life engine)"]
seek_code_commit: "17d9798"
---


AI researcher known for work on open-ended and quality-diversity search —
co-creator (with Jean-Baptiste Mouret) of MAP-Elites (2015) and a leading
figure in the broader open-endedness lineage (POET and related
environment-generating algorithms), with past appointments spanning
academia, Uber AI Labs, and OpenAI.

Matters to this vault as the co-originator of MAP-Elites, the
quality-diversity algorithm Microcosmos's Experiment 4 runs directly to
search for diverse locomotion strategies — placing him in the same
open-endedness neighborhood as Microcosmos co-author
[[entity-kenneth-o-stanley|Kenneth O. Stanley]].

## References
- [[claim-microcosmos-four-experiments-handdesigned-to-emergent]]
- Captures: 2026-08-20-do-microcosmoss-scaling-benchmark-linear-to-500k-particles