Fry: Coming soon, a podcast series
that gives you the inside track
on how artificial intelligence
is being created
and how it could change our lives
and the society that we live in.
person: All the sudden,
you've got a vast number--
literally a number of options
that is in the billions.
person: Results are amazing.
I think they're jaw-dropping.
person: The rules and heuristics
don't get better over time, but AI does.
person: I think it's gonna be
the most amazing
transformative technology
that humanity's ever invented.
Fry: For the past 12 months,
we've been tracking
the latest work of scientists,
researchers, and engineers at DeepMind.
robotic voice: Go up.
Fry: Ready to go?
person: I'll try to teach you
to make a sound.
Fry: And you're training me,
essentially, with reinforcement learning
and my reward function
is getting you to be happy.
Meep, and beep, boop.
person: Boop, bleep. Ahh!
Fry: And boop.
person: I'd go with the first one.
Fry: Welcome to "DeepMind: The Podcast."
I'm Hannah Fry.
I'm a mathematician who has worked
with algorithms for almost a decade.
Just in this series,
we've looked at energy conservation,
medical diagnosis,
and protein folding,
all of which certainly show
the machine's ability
to solve hard problems.
person: We've been able
to make a step change
on a hard problem that's been worked on
for over 50 years.
Fry: Of all of the results
that've come out of DeepMind,
this is the one that's got
the scientific community most excited.
person: Yes.
person: The sort of opportunity
to explore and search the space
is really something that's well designed
for AI to do.
It's a very efficient search algorithm.
person: Amazingly, we discovered
that the system
which had learned completely for itself
without a single piece of human knowledge
ended up being far stronger.
Fry: [gasps] I didn't know that.
We're looking at how
they're approaching the science of AI,
and some of the tricky decisions
that the whole field is wrestling with.
I think it's important
that you are intentional
about why you're building this.
And if you start from that premise,
then I think you're more likely
to do the good
that you hoped you were going to do.
person: So we don't just want
human imitation.
We want superhuman capabilities,
but without unsafe behavior.
Fry: But if anyone has an idea
of what it will take,
it's Demis Hassabis,
the CEO and co-founder of DeepMind.
Hassabis: All the big questions,
you know, the meaning of life,
how did the universe start,
what is consciousness--
all these questions, which I feel like
a blaring claxon in my mind
that I would like to understand.
And my attempt at doing that
is to build AI first.
Fry: So whether you want to know more
about where technology is headed,
or want to be inspired
on your own AI journey,
then you've come to the right place.
Hassabis: I hope that what people
are going to get out of this series
is a better understanding
of artificial intelligence,
and I hope they also
get a great feeling
for how exhilarating an endeavor
and a journey that we're on here.
Fry: "DeepMind: The Podcast"
with me, Hannah Fry.
Coming soon to your podcast provider.
