THE INFINITY MACHINE

Funding challenges, computational demands, and intense competition for top research talent shape this tale of an extraordinary AI pioneer.

Author and journalist Mallaby has crafted a fascinating portrait of Demis Hassabis, the influential thinker heading DeepMind, Google’s AI research laboratory. Born in North London to immigrant parents, Hassabis became a chess master by age 13, game designer by 17, and later pursued a Ph.D. in neuroscience. In 2016, his startup DeepMind’s AlphaGo program mastered the complex game of Go. In 2024, Hassabis co-won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his protein-folding solver AlphaFold2. Mallaby captures Hassabis’ curiosity and relentless drive, weaving a vivid tapestry of collaborators, competitors, and engineers of modern AI systems. While AI systems of the 1960s used symbolic programming with inflexible rules, Mallaby notes, “future scientists would have to invent a new kind of machine…that discovered the patterns in a near infinity of data.” Hassabis emerges as a volatile genius with antennae tuned to the future. Quirky, brilliant researchers from diverse backgrounds vie for the ultimate prize: Artificial General Intelligence. “Doing science is, sort of, like reading the mind of God,” Hassabis muses. “Understanding the deep mystery of the universe is my religion, kind of.” Mallaby also explores the motives and machinations of researchers, schemers, and those alarmed by AGI’s risks. One defeated Go master cautions, “At first, it looks harmless. Then it’s just completely dominating. We don’t understand the mechanics, the tactics, the strategies. We just know that it is in control.” The lively narrative explores reinforcement learning, deep learning, and large language models with general pre-trained transformers (which power ChatGPT), offering a rare glimpse inside the most transformative technology of our time. Plentiful footnotes and an index provide resources for further exploration.

A tantalizing glimpse inside the pursuit of machine superintelligence.