Google Acquires Artificial Intelligence Startup DeepMind

[Camilo]

Google Acquires Artificial Intelligence Startup DeepMind For More Than $500M

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/26/google-deepmind/

Google will buy London-based artificial intelligence company DeepMind. The Information reports that the acquisition price was more than $500 million, and that Facebook was also in talks to buy the startup late last year. DeepMind confirmed the acquisition to us, but couldn’t disclose deal terms.

The acquisition was originally confirmed by Google to Re/code.

Google’s hiring of DeepMind will help it compete against other major tech companies as they all try to gain business advantages by focusing on deep learning. For example, Facebook recently hired NYU professor Yann LeCunn to lead its new artificial intelligence lab, IBM’s Watson supercomputer is now working on deep learning, and Yahoo recently acquired photo analysis startup LookFlow to lead its new deep learning group.

DeepMind was founded by neuroscientist Demis Hassabis, a former child prodigy in chess, Shane Legg, and Mustafa Suleyman. Skype and Kazaa developer Jaan Tallin is an investor.

This is the latest move by Google to fill out its roster of artificial intelligence experts and, according to Re/code, the acquisition was reportedly led by Google CEO Larry Page. If all three of DeepMind’s founders work for Google, they will join inventor, entrepreneur, author, and futurist Ray Kurzweil, who was hired in 2012 as a director of engineering focused on machine learning and language processing.

Kurzweil has said that he wants to build a search engine so advanced that it could act like a “cybernetic friend.”

After it acquired Nest earlier this month, critics voiced concerns about how much customer data the smart device maker would share with Google. The company’s purchase of Boston Dynamics last month also sparked confusion about why a search company needs a robotics maker.

Google looks like it is better prepared to allay user concerns over its latest acquisition. According to The Information’s sources, Google has agreed to establish an ethics board to ensure DeepMind’s artificial intelligence technology isn’t abused.

But the company may also have to clarify what exactly DeepMind’s AI tech does. The company’s site currently just has a landing page, with a relatively vague description that says DeepMind is “a cutting edge artificial intelligence company” to build general-purpose learning algorithms for simulations, e-commerce, and games. As of December, the startup had about 75 employees, says The Information.

Re/code reports that Founders Fund and Horizons Ventures are both major investors in the startup. DeepMind was started about three years ago, according to LinkedIn profiles.

In 2012, Carnegie Mellon professor Larry Wasserman wrote that the “startup is trying to build a system that thinks. This was the original dream of AI. As Shane [Legg] explained to me, there has been huge progress in both neuroscience and ML and their goal is to bring these things together. I thought it sounded crazy until he told me the list of famous billionaires who have invested in the company.”

[risveglio]

I am curious, what is the Avalonian, (Avalonites! for you Taxi fans :) ) opinion on artificial intelligence? The promise of AI is what got me involved in the technology field but the educational requirement really dampened my young minds more important extracurricular activities so I moved to CS. I find AI completely fascinating because it has potential to do so much. I would say Star Trek gives a great example of what AI can become to both extremes. Data for the good, helpful friend and The Borg, an AI hive that assimilates humans. An American progressives dream.

[chocolate]

Edited: I will post some links below.

[risveglio]

Come ON!!!!!!!!!!!!
Doesn't anybody read this forum before posting?

Is this a dupe or should I have the consensus because of Jeffrey's posts? Sorry, its been a long week.

[chocolate]

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?55117-The-Technological-Revolution-Artificial-Intelligence-and-the-Invisible-Plague

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?46887-From-Bill-Ryan-the-Ultimate-Hypothesis&p=769125&viewfull=1#post769125

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?66512-Google-Robotics-and-the-Age-of-Intelligent-Machines

[Lifebringer]

You never know, the country has been demanding an upgrade in teaching capacity, and perhaps the teacher of math, science and other courses that require precision and "facts proven," in schools, because education is becoming so expensive, and there's always the chance that some teacher will take a liking to your teen and do what some consider, starting a life with them in their mind, and following through. A robot can't have sexual advances towards a child, and if it comes with a projector, can show video, and have Q and A sessions with students.

But in the wrong hands, and to fool a whole world, the removal of the "real John or Jane Q. Public" with nano and robotic forces, is also a horror to consider.

What is the "Goggles/Binocular's" intent?

Soon we will have to completely shut them out, and forego the true depth of the search and survival, and not feed into any site that disrespects one's privacy for monetary value or exploitation of corporate elites for the "next baby boom" without giving credit to the inventors who actually think stuff up. That later one, is the reason I think they do this. Corporate theft and espionage on every living thought that is expressed.

[Bob]

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?55117-The-Technological-Revolution-Artificial-Intelligence-and-the-Invisible-Plague

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?46887-From-Bill-Ryan-the-Ultimate-Hypothesis&p=769125&viewfull=1#post769125

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?66512-Google-Robotics-and-the-Age-of-Intelligent-Machines

Love your eloquence :) in those threads, speaking from the mind and the heart.

Any system, biological human or synthetic will use the data, that it is given; it may or may not check the data that it is given (the question everything subroutine) and it may or may not result in an outcome. One man or machine's "checking" may not be the same as another's with a different set of value systems.

Value systems are taught, learned, experientially or trial and error.

The Deep Mind system has been discussed before on the forum, in the concept of "Deep Learning" (see: http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?65506-Does-the-internet-really-have-a-consciouness-of-its-own-or-is-it-the-byproduct-of-the-minds-that-made-it&p=759223&viewfull=1#post759223 )

In that post I mentioned,

""Google scientists created one of the largest neural networks for machine learning by connecting 16,000 computer processors, which they turned loose on the Internet to learn on its own... The neural network taught itself to recognize cats, which is actually no frivolous activity. We never told it during the training, ‘This is a cat,’ ” said Dr. Dean. "

ref: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/technology/in-a-big-network-of-computers-evidence-of-machine-learning.html?_r=1& - "How Many Computers to Identify a Cat? A: 16,000"

"MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Inside Google’s secretive X laboratory, known for inventing self-driving cars and augmented reality glasses, a small group of researchers began working several years ago on a simulation of the human brain."

The technique is called, "Deep Learning".

Is there some algorithm in some super AI network which can cause itself to feel "satisfaction", or cause it to feel "accomplishment", or cause it to feel "frustration", or cause it to feel "confusion" ? If one added in the ascribed "human sensations, human emotions, human feelings", and the quest to get "more data" and try to come up with "connected dots" then eventually lead to a significant consciousness?

It seems to me, a dumb data-base is a dumb database. But put an AI network together with significant attributes [add in "value systems" typically called "weights"], and we may want to ask that question again, what is consciousness and can the "Net" be it's eyes and ears.." (the methods to acquire raw data to be sorted through for values)

All of that is about mining - information, accurate, disinformation, noise, value.. Interpretation is a measure of what value systems are setup. A value for a terrorist maybe slightly different than a value for a corporate CEO, but may be radically different that what a houswife with 2 kids feels is significant..

Google has been looking into "deep" data acquisition systems for quite some time..

To acquire companies claiming to have an understanding on the "deep learning" concepts is a logical outcome.

[vilcabamba]

AI is not being used in our best interest. I know that Google was also shopping around for sensil nanotechnology products. They want to merge man with machine. And it's not to help us, it's to CONTROL us. The chemtrails are spraying the sensil nanotechnology and then this technology multiplies in the body, and the nano chips are connected to the artificial technology computer system. They want to control our minds, keep us docile, make us consume stupid junk and keep us as slaves. This is not for the betterment of society. It's already happening. Most of us have this nanotechnology multiplying in our bodies right now. Notice how people are turning into zombies? It's because of the fact that people are already hooked up to the IBM brainbeam computer system and having their minds controlled.

[grannyfranny100]

This is very, very dangerous. It takes us away from a currently low grade wake up. We have so much within that needs to come to our consciousness. We need to be working on our spiritual development!!! Are you really ready to have the worldwide corporatocracy decide what to feed into your brain. Don't you think you have already been bamboozled enough by the powers that be.

[chocolate]

My short eloquent post points to a thread already created and with even more information inside. Jeff had put quite the effort, especially in the AI thread.
Just thought at the time people will actually try the links.

[Mad Hatter]

So not more than a couple of steps down that road and we get AI (already here) driven by Quantum computing (already here) with a Quantum entanglement (already proven) capability.

Checkmate by team Borg anyone !?!! :eyebrows:

On the other hand maybe humans where just a necessary toolset designed as a stepping stone to birth a conscious silicone based life form. :noidea:

[Bob]

So not more than a couple of steps down that road and we get AI (already here) driven by Quantum computing (already here) with a Quantum entanglement (already proven) capability.

Checkmate by team Borg anyone !?!! :eyebrows:

On the other hand maybe humans where just a necessary toolset designed as a stepping stone to birth a conscious silicone based life form. :noidea:

Hia, good dot connecting there :)

quantum computing, from the definition of "quantum holographic information" creation, and one creates reality.. i.e. "thoughts become things"..

we've seen this discussed with groups before in the early 80's at the outset of the "practicality of group control"..

random noise breaks apart quantumly cohered thoughtforms.

to get a group to cohere, some "drama is needed", a focal point to which the group focuses.

on the point of focus, then the quantum manipulation happens to the group, to "sway" the group into more and more cohesion in the direction of the "actualization".

-- the result was the group is able to sway, modify/alter the apparent randomness of "events".

TPTB realized that the organic has free will (to an extent that it is not totally hooked into the rest of the group mind).. and that bothers them.

to put the aspect of "group quantum holographic information" creation/manipulation into a synthetic, which mimics or even exceeds the biologic, HAS BEEN TPTB's goal.

When THAT POWER is in the synthetic, because that synthetic has been created by TPTB, there is no longer any need for the BIOLOGIC..

THAT IMHO is the OUTCOME of this drama.. (sigh)

BINGO MADHATTER - dots connected.

TIME: 10 years in the future - A Question at this point is now being asked, now that the biologics have "woken up" (ah hum..), will the biologics choose to bow down to the synthetics (and assume the role of useless eaters)?