“The inside story of the AI breakthrough that won a Nobel Prize.
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The Thinking Game takes you on a journey into the heart of leading AI lab DeepMind, capturing a team striving to unravel the mysteries of intelligence and life itself.
Filmed over five years by the award winning team behind AlphaGo, the documentary examines how DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis’s extraordinary beginnings shaped his lifelong pursuit of artificial general intelligence. It chronicles the rigorous process of scientific discovery, documenting how the team moved from mastering complex strategy games to solving the 50-year-old “protein folding problem” with AlphaFold — a breakthrough that would win a Nobel Prize.”
At SciCon 2024, John Cumbers, founder and CEO of SynBioBeta, explores the groundbreaking and controversial potential of synthetic biology and AI in brain and body replacement. He delves into stem cell research and AI’s role in regenerating brain function, while also addressing the provocative idea of gradually replacing parts of the brain and body. Cumbers discusses how these advancements could one day lead to life extension, challenging traditional views on aging, and raising ethical questions about the future of human biology.
SciCon (2024) is ResearchHub’s annual conference, which unites truth-seekers and innovators to push the boundaries of open science.
– ResearchHub’s mission is to accelerate the pace of scientific research. We are building a modern platform where people can collaborate on scientific research more efficiently, much like GitHub has done for software engineering. We believe scientific research should be accessible to everyone, collaborative, and prioritized.
The Intelligence Revolution: Coupling AI and the Human Brain. New videos DAILY: https://bigth.ink. Join Big Think Edge for exclusive video lessons from top thinkers and doers: https://bigth.ink/Edge.
Edward Boyden is a Hertz Foundation Fellow and recipient of the prestigious Hertz Foundation Grant for graduate study in the applications of the physical, biological and engineering sciences. A professor of Biological Engineering and Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, Edward Boyden explains how humanity is only at its infancy in merging with machines. His work is leading him towards the development of a “brain co-processor”, a device that interacts intimately with the brain to upload and download information to and from it, augmenting human capabilities in memory storage, decision making, and cognition. The first step, however, is understanding the brain on a much deeper level. With the support of the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation, Ed Boyden pursued a PhD in neurosciences from Stanford University.
EDWARD BOYDEN:
Edward Boyden is a professor of Biological Engineering and Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the MIT Media Lab and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT. He leads the Media Lab’s Synthetic Neurobiology group, which develops tools for analyzing and repairing complex biological systems, such as the brain, and applies them systematically both to reveal ground truth principles of biological function and to repair these systems.
These technologies, often created in interdisciplinary collaborations, include expansion microscopy (which enables complex biological systems to be imaged with nanoscale precision) optogenetic tools (which enable the activation and silencing of neural activity with light,) and optical, nanofabricated, and robotic interfaces (which enable recording and control of neural dynamics).
Boyden has launched an award-winning series of classes at MIT, which teach principles of neuroengineering, starting with the basic principles of how to control and observe neural functions, and culminating with strategies for launching companies in the nascent neurotechnology space. He also co-directs the MIT Center for Neurobiological Engineering, which aims to develop new tools to accelerate neuroscience progress.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright unveiled the plan at the White House with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and outgoing Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin. PJM representatives were not at the event.
“We have to get out from underneath this bureaucratic system that we have in the regional grid operators and we’ve got to allow markets to work,” Burgum said at the White House. “One of the ways markets can work is to have the hyperscalers actually rapidly building power.”
Utility bills are rising in many parts of the U.S. despite Trump’s promise to lower energy prices during his presidential campaign. The issue played a major role in the landslide victories of Democrats Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger in the governors’ races of New Jersey and Virginia, respectively.
Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI aims to expose the company’s alleged abandonment of its non-profit mission and potential shift to a for-profit model, sparking a heated dispute over the company’s future and integrity ##
## Questions to inspire discussion.
Understanding the lawsuit timeline and stakes.
🔍 Q: When is Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI going to trial and what is he claiming?
A: The lawsuit is set to go to trial in April 2026, with Musk arguing he’s owed billions from the value of intellectual property developed from his contributions as the primary funder who wanted OpenAI to remain nonprofit and open source.
📄 Q: What evidence exists in Greg Brockman’s personal files from 2017?
This is the second time in recent months that the AI world has got all excited about math. The rumor mill went into overdrive last November, when there were reports that the boardroom drama at OpenAI, which saw CEO Sam Altman temporarily ousted, was caused by a new powerful AI breakthrough. It was reported that the AI system in question was called Q* and could solve complex math calculations. (The company has not commented on Q*, and we still don’t know if there was any link to the Altman ouster or not.) I unpacked the drama and hype in this story.
You don’t need to be really into math to see why this stuff is potentially very exciting. Math is really, really hard for AI models. Complex math, such as geometry, requires sophisticated reasoning skills, and many AI researchers believe that the ability to crack it could herald more powerful and intelligent systems. Innovations like AlphaGeometry show that we are edging closer to machines with more human-like reasoning skills. This could allow us to build more powerful AI tools that could be used to help mathematicians solve equations and perhaps come up with better tutoring tools.
OpenAI announced Friday it will begin testing advertisements on ChatGPT in the coming weeks, as the wildly popular artificial intelligence chatbot seeks to increase revenue to cover its soaring costs.
