Demis Hassabis

Terrifying because scientists cut each other's throats to be the first to publish.

At DeepMind, we're promising the opposite experience.

The thrilling pursuit of the big leap and the near absence of rivals.

We are going to do stuff where there's no competition because no one thinks it's possible.

Blessed are those who believed before there was any evidence.

And so one of the first things they do, I think this is really important.

The fact that this to me is really the power of biography because you see that you see the evolution of their thinking and their behavior over time.

He is learning.

He's learning from his failed experiment with his previous company.

So DeepMind, what they want to do is they're trying to create an agent that can make plans and achieve goals in multiple environments.

And so they start out on what they think is the perfect environment for testing an agent.

All the video games that were designed in the 1970s and 80s by Atari.

And this is why.

Given the primitive state of video graphics in that era, the computing power required to crack Atari would be affordable.

Given that Atari had released dozens of games, an agent would have plenty of opportunities to prove it could be general.

Given that most Atari games featured a constantly updating score, the agent would have the feedback it needed to learn how to play better.

Demis had grown since his experience with Elixir.

In both cases, Demis had announced a maximalist ambition, but in the case of DeepMind, he had also figured out a ladder that led to his destination.

At Elixir, he had plunged his company straight into making the most complex video game ever, and that overreach had doomed the project.

At DeepMind, the ultimate goal was even grander, but Demis had let people tinker while he was building out the scientific team, not setting a demanding goal for them.