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Is anyone else reading Sebastian Mallaby’s new book about Demis and Deepmind: The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligenc

Is anyone else reading Sebastian Mallaby’s new book about Demis and Deepmind: The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence? It’s pretty good, and goes a lot into his background before Deepmind (chess kid, developing games at bullfrog, CS at Cambridge, bullfrog again, games startup…). He’s certainly an interesting guy, and as others are pointing out, more thoughtful and earnest than your average tech industry leader. One pleasant thing that comes across in the book is how he resisted the allure of moving to Silicon Valley and wanted to keep Deepmind in London, where he still lives. I hadn’t really appreciated before the connection between his chess and game industry experience and the early reinforcement learning work that put Deepmind on the map, e.g. the Atari game AI demos, AlphaGo, Alphazero, etc. There is a fascinating thread there and it’s certainly a case of the right person with the right mix of past experience and vision being able to pick exactly the right problems to focus on to move technology forward. The book has a few flaws: it’s maybe a little too uncritical of its subject. But that’s almost a given with books of this kind where the author gets a lot of access.

moab 5mo ago
Bro, are we reading the same book? The book is totally uncritical of the subject and paints him like the second coming of christ. It feels like GDM wanted a canonization of Hassabis, and the writer simply obliged. Also, how does everything that GDM did keep coming back to some vague ideas in the guy's thesis? He is a great leader, no doubt, but him winning the Nobel Prize was just a huge joke. Out of all the heads of AI orgs out there, Dennis is the best, but the book did him a disservice by painting an unrealistically sunny picture of him as some kind of visionary figure.
- AIorNot 5mo ago
  Yeah hero worship and making into a villan is all part and parcel of the Nerd community these days Guys hes just one smart guy who got placed in a good moment in the AI technological revolution- hes def not the second coming of Christ
  - threepts 5mo ago
    He statistically is the second coming of Christ Nobel and several breakthroughs in nature.
- libraryofbabel 5mo ago
  Not a “bro” (there are women on this site you know), and perhaps you’re missing the British understatement in my “maybe a little too uncritical of its subject” line. Obviously the book is totally biased in favor of Hassabis and Deepmind. That doesn’t mean it’s not an interesting read and that doesn’t mean the connection between his experience in the games industry and Deepmind’s early success isn’t there. And I think the book does highlight his most critical skill, which is projecting a Reality Distortion Field to get other smart people to believe in things he has in mind that are still very speculative bets. Like I already said, bias is inevitable in a book where the writer gets access (to the point of interviewing Hassabis in a North London pub every month), but the benefit to readers is that you do get a lot more insight into what makes the guy tick than you would in a book written by an outsider. I certainly learned a lot and just because I did doesn’t mean I’m buying into some cult of tech hero worship.
  - jatora 5mo ago
    "bro" doesn't mean male in this context. It's just a general exclamation bro
    - erpellan 5mo ago
      Tell it like it is, sis.
      - mdp2021 5mo ago
        The problem with "sister" is that it is ambiguous, pls. see my parallel post.
    - libraryofbabel 5mo ago
      Oh wow, you blow my mind with your linguistic erudition; I had no idea it was possible to use male-gendered terms in a generic way! Well, all is forgiven, then. Seriously, just... don't? This isn’t some woke political thing and I dislike excessive policing of language but damn it, there are limits. "Guys" I'll let pass no problem, maybe even "dude" too on a good day. At "bro" I will take a stand, thank you very much.
- rl3 5mo ago
  >Dennis is the best, but the book did him a disservice by painting an unrealistically sunny picture of him as some kind of visionary figure. Wait, 'unrealistically sunny'? You better not be talking about Dennis from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, because we're all screwed if so. Then again, the western AI landscape has become somewhat stale recently. Claude and Gemini may have cute names, but they all pale in comparison to The Golden God.
  - rl3 5mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Always_Sunny_in_Philadelphia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Always_Sunny_in_Philade... ^ Educational resources for the ignorant that instead prefer to discuss the merits of the term "bro", at length.
adamsb6 5mo ago
I'm enjoying it. It's wild to realize that I spent countless hours playing Theme Park when I was around 10 years old, and Demis had been a big contributor to the game when he wasn't much older. Also I don't really care that it's a bit of a cheerleader for DeepMind and Hassabis. Substantive criticism is good, but too often with these kind of books it feels like an editor told the author that the book needs something negative and the author has to inflate an issue to meet the requirement.
- libraryofbabel 5mo ago
  The author did give him credit for the whole you-can-make-the-fries-super-salty-to-increase-demand-for-drinks thing in Theme Park, which I remember vividly. (I, too, dropped many hours on Theme Park as a kid.) Although I imagine there’s about half a dozen people who lay claim to that idea.
karp773 5mo ago
I did not read this book but I read another one by Mallaby about hedge fund managers. It was pretty biased to the point that I did not recognize one of the managers I knew about (Michael Steinhardt). The guy who himself confessed in a lot of his past shady stuff in his 2001 book. Mallaby's book from 2010 did not bring up any of that shady stuff. It was like reading about a totally different person. Of course, I am not trying to prove moral equivalency between Steinhardt and Hassabis. But it is worth keeping this in mind when reading something by Mallaby. Do not expect completeness or impartiality.

moab 5mo ago

Bro, are we reading the same book? The book is totally uncritical of the subject and paints him like the second coming of christ. It feels like GDM wanted a canonization of Hassabis, and the writer simply obliged. Also, how does everything that GDM did keep coming back to some vague ideas in the guy's thesis? He is a great leader, no doubt, but him winning the Nobel Prize was just a huge joke. Out of all the heads of AI orgs out there, Dennis is the best, but the book did him a disservice by painting an unrealistically sunny picture of him as some kind of visionary figure.

AIorNot 5mo ago
Yeah hero worship and making into a villan is all part and parcel of the Nerd community these days Guys hes just one smart guy who got placed in a good moment in the AI technological revolution- hes def not the second coming of Christ
- threepts 5mo ago
  He statistically is the second coming of Christ Nobel and several breakthroughs in nature.
libraryofbabel 5mo ago
Not a “bro” (there are women on this site you know), and perhaps you’re missing the British understatement in my “maybe a little too uncritical of its subject” line. Obviously the book is totally biased in favor of Hassabis and Deepmind. That doesn’t mean it’s not an interesting read and that doesn’t mean the connection between his experience in the games industry and Deepmind’s early success isn’t there. And I think the book does highlight his most critical skill, which is projecting a Reality Distortion Field to get other smart people to believe in things he has in mind that are still very speculative bets. Like I already said, bias is inevitable in a book where the writer gets access (to the point of interviewing Hassabis in a North London pub every month), but the benefit to readers is that you do get a lot more insight into what makes the guy tick than you would in a book written by an outsider. I certainly learned a lot and just because I did doesn’t mean I’m buying into some cult of tech hero worship.
- jatora 5mo ago
  "bro" doesn't mean male in this context. It's just a general exclamation bro
  - erpellan 5mo ago
    Tell it like it is, sis.
    - mdp2021 5mo ago
      The problem with "sister" is that it is ambiguous, pls. see my parallel post.
  - libraryofbabel 5mo ago
    Oh wow, you blow my mind with your linguistic erudition; I had no idea it was possible to use male-gendered terms in a generic way! Well, all is forgiven, then. Seriously, just... don't? This isn’t some woke political thing and I dislike excessive policing of language but damn it, there are limits. "Guys" I'll let pass no problem, maybe even "dude" too on a good day. At "bro" I will take a stand, thank you very much.
rl3 5mo ago
>Dennis is the best, but the book did him a disservice by painting an unrealistically sunny picture of him as some kind of visionary figure. Wait, 'unrealistically sunny'? You better not be talking about Dennis from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, because we're all screwed if so. Then again, the western AI landscape has become somewhat stale recently. Claude and Gemini may have cute names, but they all pale in comparison to The Golden God.
- rl3 5mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Always_Sunny_in_Philadelphia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Always_Sunny_in_Philade... ^ Educational resources for the ignorant that instead prefer to discuss the merits of the term "bro", at length.

adamsb6 5mo ago

I'm enjoying it. It's wild to realize that I spent countless hours playing Theme Park when I was around 10 years old, and Demis had been a big contributor to the game when he wasn't much older. Also I don't really care that it's a bit of a cheerleader for DeepMind and Hassabis. Substantive criticism is good, but too often with these kind of books it feels like an editor told the author that the book needs something negative and the author has to inflate an issue to meet the requirement.

libraryofbabel 5mo ago
The author did give him credit for the whole you-can-make-the-fries-super-salty-to-increase-demand-for-drinks thing in Theme Park, which I remember vividly. (I, too, dropped many hours on Theme Park as a kid.) Although I imagine there’s about half a dozen people who lay claim to that idea.

karp773 5mo ago

I did not read this book but I read another one by Mallaby about hedge fund managers. It was pretty biased to the point that I did not recognize one of the managers I knew about (Michael Steinhardt). The guy who himself confessed in a lot of his past shady stuff in his 2001 book. Mallaby's book from 2010 did not bring up any of that shady stuff. It was like reading about a totally different person. Of course, I am not trying to prove moral equivalency between Steinhardt and Hassabis. But it is worth keeping this in mind when reading something by Mallaby. Do not expect completeness or impartiality.