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Demis Hassabis

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Demis Hassabis
Born (1976-07-27) 27 July 1976 (age 47)
London
NationalityBritish
Alma mater
Known for
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
ThesisNeural processes underpinning episodic memory (2009)
Doctoral advisorEleanor Maguire[2]
Websitewww.demishassabis.com

Demis Hassabis (born 27 July 1976) is a British computer game designer, artificial intelligence programmer, neuroscientist and world-class games player.[4][3][5][6][7][1][8][9][10][11]

Education

A child prodigy in chess, Hassabis reached master standard at the age of 13 with an Elo rating of 2300 (at the time the second highest rated player in the world Under-14 after Judit Polgár who had a rating of 2335). After finishing his A-Level exams two years early he began his computer games career at Bullfrog Productions, first level designing on Syndicate and then at 17 co-designing and lead programming on the classic game Theme Park, with the games designer Peter Molyneux. Theme Park, a celebrated simulation game, sold several million copies and won a Golden Joystick Award, and inspired a whole genre of management sim games. Hassabis then left Bullfrog to take up his place at Queens' College, Cambridge where he studied the Computer Science Tripos graduating in 1997 with a Double First[citation needed] from the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge. Hassabis received his PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from University College London (UCL) in 2009[2] and continued his neuroscience and artificial intelligence research as a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, UCL and as a visiting scientist jointly at MIT and Harvard.[12]

Career

Following his graduation Hassabis worked briefly as a lead AI programmer on the Lionhead Studios title Black & White before founding Elixir Studios in 1998, a London-based independent games developer. He grew the company to 60 people, signing publishing deals with Vivendi Universal and Microsoft, and was the executive designer of the BAFTA-nominated Republic: The Revolution and Evil Genius games.

The release of Elixir's first game, Republic: The Revolution,[13] was delayed several times. The final game was reduced from its original vision and greeted with lukewarm reviews, receiving a Metacritic score of 62/100. Evil Genius fared much better with a score of 77/100. In April 2005 the intellectual property and technology rights were sold to various publishers and the studio was closed.

Hassabis then left the video game industry, switching to cognitive neuroscience. Working in the field of autobiographical memory and amnesia he authored several influential papers.[14] The paper argued that patients with damage to their hippocampus, known to cause amnesia, were also unable to imagine themselves in new experiences. Importantly this established a link between the constructive process of imagination and the reconstructive process of episodic memory recall. Based on these findings and a follow-up fMRI study,[15] Hassabis developed his ideas into a new theoretical account of the episodic memory system identifying scene construction, the generation and online maintenance of a complex and coherent scene, as a key process underlying both memory recall and imagination.[16] This work was widely covered in the mainstream media[17] and was listed in the top 10 scientific breakthroughs of the year (at number 9) in any field by the journal Science.[18]

Recently some of Hassabis' findings and interpretations have been challenged by other researchers. A paper by Larry R. Squire and colleagues [19] reported a dissociation between hippocampal lesions and imagination deficits as well as between amnesia and imagination deficits. Furthermore, Squire and colleagues questioned whether the lesions of the patients tested by Hassabis and colleagues were restricted to the hippocampus. Recent studies support the original findings,[20] although the debate is ongoing.[21]

Hassabis won the world games championship (called the 'Pentamind') at the Mind Sports Olympiad a record five times, prior to his retirement from competitive play in 2003, and at the time was regarded as the best all-round games player in the world.[22] He is an expert player of many games including chess, Diplomacy, shogi and poker.

In 2011, he left academia to co-found DeepMind Technologies, a London-based machine learning startup.

In January 2014 DeepMind was acquired by Google for a reported £400 million, where Hassabis is now an Engineering Director leading their general AI projects.[12][23][24][25]

Awards and honours

Hassabis was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) in 2009 for his game design work.[26]

Personal life

Hassabis lives in North London with his wife and two sons. He is of Greek-Cypriot origin from his father's side. [12]

References

  1. ^ a b Demis Hassabis publications indexed by Google Scholar
  2. ^ a b Hassabis, Demis (2009). Neural processes underpinning episodic memory (PhD thesis). University College London.
  3. ^ a b c Demis Hassabis at IMDb
  4. ^ Demis Hassabis at MobyGames
  5. ^ Demis Hassabis rating card at FIDE
  6. ^ Demis Hassabis publications indexed by Microsoft Academic
  7. ^ Demis Hassabis at DBLP Bibliography Server Edit this at Wikidata
  8. ^ Demis Hassabis's publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  9. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0296, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1098/rstb.2008.0296 instead.
  10. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1126/science.1144298, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1126/science.1144298 instead.
  11. ^ Demis Hassabis: the secretive computer boffin with the £400 million brain Daily Telegraph 2014-01-28
  12. ^ a b c Gardner, Jasmine (31 January 2014). "Exclusive interview: meet Demis Hassabis, London's megamind who just sold his company to Google for £400m". Evening Standard. Retrieved 3 February 2014.
  13. ^ Game plays politics with your PC, BBC, Alfred Hermida, 3 September 2003 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3201221.stm retrieved 2011-04-29
  14. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1073/pnas.0610561104, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1073/pnas.0610561104 instead.
  15. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4549-07.2007, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4549-07.2007 instead.
  16. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1016/j.tics.2007.05.001, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1016/j.tics.2007.05.001 instead.
  17. ^ NY Times Article
  18. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1126/science.318.5858.1844a, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1126/science.318.5858.1844a instead.
  19. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1073/pnas.1014391107, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1073/pnas.1014391107 instead.
  20. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1073/pnas.1018876108, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1073/pnas.1018876108 instead.
  21. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1073/pnas.1019643108, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1073/pnas.1019643108 instead.
  22. ^ "Player Profile demis_hassabis". Boardability.com. Retrieved 28 January 2014.
  23. ^ Google buys artificial intelligence firm DeepMind Technologies for £400m
  24. ^ Google buys UK artificial intelligence start-up DeepMind, BBC News
  25. ^ http://recode.net/2014/01/26/exclusive-google-to-buy-artificial-intelligence-startup-deepmind-for-400m/
  26. ^ Child prodigy stands by originality, The Guardian, 9 September 2004, by Steve Boxer,


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