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A book review of Sebastian Mallaby's 'The Infinity Machine' criticizes its uncritical embrace of AI hype and ornate prose while detailing the life and achievements of DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis, from chess prodigy to AGI pioneer.
Summary
This review of Sebastian Mallaby's 'The Infinity Machine' examines the life and career of AI pioneer Demis Hassabis, highlighting DeepMind's landmark 2016 victory with AlphaGo over Go champion Lee Se-dol. The book details Hassabis's youth as a chess prodigy, his academic journey through neuroscience, and the founding of DeepMind, which attracted investment for its ambitious pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The reviewer criticizes Mallaby's prose, finds his engagement with AI hype to be uncritical, and contends that the book overstates Hassabis's philosophical contributions while overlooking significant achievements like the Nobel Prize for protein structure prediction. Ultimately, the review suggests the book fails to critically dissect the speculative narratives dominating the AI industry.