Demis Hassabis

Published by Daniel at September 1, 2023

Considered "The superhero of AI," Demis Hassabis has proven that he possesses a mind beyond his years and an eagerness to discover the full potential of AI to solve humanity's grand challenges...

Demis Hassabis is a British pioneer AI researcher, neuroscientist, award-winning computer game designer, and entrepreneur. On July 27, 1976, he was born in London to a Greek Cypriot father and a Chinese Singaporean mother. Hassabis earned his education at Christ’s College in Finchley, and he finished his GCSEs when he was only fourteen years old, two years ahead of everyone else in his class. Furthermore, he completed his A-levels and scholarship-level exams early, at the age of fifteen and sixteen. At an early age, he showed a natural aptitude for chess, and by the age of five, he was competing nationally. Moreover, at the age of six, he won the London championships, and when he was thirteen, he became the rank of chess master and was considered the second-highest-rated player in the world under fourteen at the time.(1,2,3)

Although Hassabis enjoyed the intellectual stimulation of chess competitions, he decided to pursue the study of artificial intelligence. He started his career in video games at UK studio Bullfrog Productions when he was fifteen. At Bullfrog, Hassabis worked as the lead programmer for the highly influential game “Theme Park^.”.(2,4)

From Farewell to Bullfrog to the Chess team at Cambridge.

After his fruitful time working in Bullfrog Production developing best-selling games, Hassabis decided to leave the company to study Computer Science at Cambridge University. At Cambridge, he led the chess team for three consecutive years and graduated with a Double First-Class honors degree in 1997. (3,5)

When video games come in handy to neuroscience.

Following graduation, Hassabis worked at Lionhead Studios as an AI programmer for the game “Black & White.” A year later, he left Lionhead and founded his own video games company, Elixir Studios, which produced award-winning games such as Vivendi Universal and Microsoft. Elixir also made AI simulation games such as “Republic” and “Evil Genius,” which were BAFTA-nominated.

After a decade of working in video game startups, Hassabis proved to be an accomplished designer, a world-class professional gamer, and an entrepreneur. In 2005, he was determined to return to academia to explore the human brain further and understand artificial intelligence applications in science. Hassabis pursued a degree in cognitive neuroscience at University College London (UCL), obtaining his Ph.D. in 2009. Afterward, the scientist moved to the United States, intending to complete postdoctoral fellowships at MIT and Harvard. He was awarded a Henry Wellcome postdoctoral fellowship at the Gatsby Foundation Computational Neuroscience Unit at UCL when he returned to his country. Demis Hassabis found inspiration in his background in video games and his knowledge of the human brain to create new AI algorithms.(1,2,3)

Researching the advantages of both worlds.

Regarding Dr. Hassabis’s achievements in research, he has focused on several fields in neuroscience, with a primary interest in the area of autobiographical memory and amnesia. During his time as a postdoctoral graduate, he has co-authored and published multiple papers on the subject. One of his most cited articles is his piece on the neurological connection between the functions of imagination and episodic memory, which was named one of the “Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs of the Year” by the journal Science. During his life, he has fused his experiences in AI with neurosciences, deciding in 2010 to follow his most ambitious and successful project, DeepMind Technologies.

Hassabis counted on his long-time friends Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman to create this AI startup focusing on computing algorithms in London. They aimed to integrate AI with human intelligence to find answers for long-overdue problems and pursue the goal of “artificial general intelligence,” a general-purpose learning technology with enormous implications for diverse scientific research areas and to make a positive global impact.(6,7,8)

A new understanding on proteins = Wider options in medicine.

Demis Hassabis’s pioneering work and discoveries go beyond his machine-learning advantages. DeepMind impact has brought many benefits to understanding reinforcement learning, generative models, unsupervised learning, and robotics. These concepts and the importance of developing algorithms were noted by the giant tech company Google, which joined forces with DeepMind in 2014. This partnership with Google allowed Hassabis to accelerate in many aspects: The creation of a neural Turing machine, a recurrent neural network with the algorithmic power of a computer, the AlphaGo project, an alliance with the NHS of the UK, and Moorfields Eye Hospital to identify degenerative eye conditions, the development of a novel technique for exploring OCT scans results with higher accuracy (94%) than trained and their most recent discovery, the AlphaFold project, a system that could predict the structure of proteins, with promising future for the environment, medicine and agriculture. This scientist has expressed that he considers that AI will be “one of the most beneficial technologies of mankind ever.” (9,10,11)

Guiding U.K to find solutions.

More recently, in 2018, Hassabis was elected as a UK Government AI Advisor due to his impressive background in the area. He is also the Vice President of Engineering at Google DeepMind and is still a key player in Google’s general AI projects, including the AlphaGo and AlphaFold. Last year, Dr. Hassabis was invited by the UK government to be part of a scientific advisor group for emergencies (Sage). The primary goal is to provide assistance and insights to the Cabinet Office on how the UK should move forward regarding national emergency status due to the pandemic.(12,13)

The power behind the mind.

The numerous accomplishments of the “Superhero of artificial intelligence” certainly have not gone unnoticed. Still, perhaps the most noteworthy recognitions are being named in 2009 Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, achieving the Royal Society Mullard Award in 2014, and the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2018 for his pioneering work in AI and contributions to his nation’s prosperity.(7)