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Google to Buy Artificial Intelligence Startup DeepMind for $400M

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Re: Google to Buy Artificial Intelligence Startup DeepMind for $400M

#141

Ohhh, did Google buy them? Or did the AI figure that the best place to launch world domination from was inside Google so it forged a letter from Larry and Sergey offering to acquire the company? :-)

We're not commenting at YouTube level. We're in sheer awe at someone having the chutzpah to dump hundreds of millions of dollars into realizing their scifi fever dreams.

Re: Google to Buy Artificial Intelligence Startup DeepMind for $400M

#142
post #106

>The DeepMind-Google ethics board, which DeepMind pushed for.. Damn, if DeepMind had to 'push' for an ethics board then that is a fairly bad sign. I am getting more worried. [0] https://www.theinformation.com/Google-beat-Facebook-For-Deep...

At least someone pushed for it. It's reassuring to hear that the thought was on the radar at all.

Re: Google to Buy Artificial Intelligence Startup DeepMind for $400M

#143
post #135

Programmers might be one of the unfortunate firsts that can be replaced by AI! No programming at all everything self programs itself!

If one can write a program that can generate any program, the world as we know it would be such a different place protecting my job will be least of my worries. This is basically the equivalent of a run away program what can create better versions of itself automatically.

Nearly every human's job is at stake here.

Re: Google to Buy Artificial Intelligence Startup DeepMind for $400M

#146
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50 people should cost ~$50 million, if it's a very strict talent acquisition, maybe $200 if they're really good. I think as well that there is some hard IP involved, or that they were close enough to a breakthrough for there to be hard IP.

It looks to me like Google really wants to build a monopoly on the best AI people in the world, and is willing to pay out the nose to do it. Given that we're starting to get to the point where AI is going to be useful in a lot of fields, I think it's actually a really good strategy. No one competent out there to build a good competitor to completely autonomous self-driving cars at another company, for example, which…

And the update to the article says they were competing with Google, Facebook, Baidu... could be google was getting rid of the competition for talent; and gaining ability to attract more talent.

Though if they're expected to do wonderful things, and they've been doing things for years... it seems a certainty that they have already done some of those wonderful things. And hence have something concrete worth acquiring. Which would explain the valuation.

Re: Google to Buy Artificial Intelligence Startup DeepMind for $400M

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a goal of which Google has made no acknowledgment whatsoever. So let's hope they haven't gone quite as nuts as they seem to have gone.

As a goal, I'm sure they're thinking about it. Unfriendly AI is part of pop-culture, after all. As a hard mathematical problem, not so much (I was following Ben Goertzel's OpenCog project for quite some time, and he seems to have this view, even though he's affiliated to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, which has Friendliness as its principal concern). The trouble is that if Friendliness is the slightest…

Question from someone ignorant on the subject: if we can select and breed friendlier and friendlier animals (has been easily done with wild foxes and other wild animals, not to mention dogs), why would it be hard to creat AIs with friendliness and non-violence at its core?

Re: Google to Buy Artificial Intelligence Startup DeepMind for $400M

#148
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand the objective of those like Kurzweil. What do they see as the benefit of the singularity? Wouldn't a drastically more advanced intelligence just dwarf and dissolve any lesser intelligence that tried to meld with it? It would be complete ego death.

At best, a copy of you living in VR gets to live until the sun explodes. Which at least is better defined than "heaven".

and does it matter? I mean, since it's a copy, to your biological "you", it's just no different as if they put some other random person in VR and told you it was you in there.

I find the 'upload your brain to a hard drive' thing silly unless they figure out how to have your biological consciousness seamlessly move to the VR, like it was taking some bus ride and ended up in this new place.

Re: Google to Buy Artificial Intelligence Startup DeepMind for $400M

#149
post #109
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand the objective of those like Kurzweil. What do they see as the benefit of the singularity? Wouldn't a drastically more advanced intelligence just dwarf and dissolve any lesser intelligence that tried to meld with it? It would be complete ego death.

I don't think a public company answerable to investors and other stake holders will ever work toward a SciFi futuristic concept. But AI definitely has a lot of benefits. Start from self driving cars to automation in manufacturing industries. And that is just the very beginning. Google's line of businesses can benefit immensely from such work. There is endless money to be made. And it is better you grab it when it is…

> I don't think a public company answerable to investors and other stake holders will ever work toward a SciFi futuristic concept.

I think Google has a proven track record of working on whatever they find interesting/beneficial to humanity, not necessarily minding shareholders - cf. self-driving cars, Project Loon, 10^100, whatever was that stuff they did in clean energy business (I recall them working on wind energy or sth?).

If anyone is going to pull off something like an real AI, I'd bet it will be Google - it's the only company I know that has the size, manpower, minds, money, know-how and a healthy attitude toward profits (bettering human kind > short term gains) all in one place.

Re: Google to Buy Artificial Intelligence Startup DeepMind for $400M

#150
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At best, a copy of you living in VR gets to live until the sun explodes. Which at least is better defined than "heaven".

Well, when you scratch the surface, it's not really any better defined than heaven. You're gonna have to spec out 'copy', 'you' and 'living'.

We have some ideas on how to make "copy" work, and what "you" and "living" is. We also know that we can in principle achieve it by our own strength as a civilization. We can see the path from "here" to "there". Which seems much better defined than heaven.
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