From 1:14:55-1:15:20, within the span of 25 seconds, the way Demis spoke about releasing all known sequences without a shred of doubt was so amazing to see. There wasn't a single second where he worried about the business side of it (profits, earnings, shareholders, investors) —he just knew it had to be open source for the betterment of the world. Gave me goosebumps. I watched that on repeat for more than 10 times.
One of the smart choices was that it omitted a whole potential discussion about LLMs (VLMs) etc. and the fact that that part of the AI revolution was not invented in that group, and just showed them using/testing it.
One takeaway could be that you could be one of the world's most renowned AI geniuses and not invent the biggest breakthrough (like transformers). But also somewhat interesting is that even though he had been thinking about this for most of his life, the key technology (transformer-type architecture) was not invented until 2017. And they picked it up and adapted it within 3 years of it being invented.
Also I am wondering if John Jumper and/or other members of the should get a little bit more credit for adapting transformers into Evoformer.
There are a couple parts at the start and the end where a lady points her phone camera at stuff and asks an AI about what it sees. Must have been mind-blowing stuff when this section was recorded (2023), but now it's just the bare minimum people expect of their phones.
Crazy times we're living in.
I would love to see a real (ie outsider) filmmaker do this - eg an updated ‘Lo and behold’ by Werner Herzog
It is interesting that Hassabis has had the same goal for almost 20 years now. He has a decent chance of hitting it too.
we can guarantee that whether its the birth of superintelligence or just a very powerful but fundamentally limited algorithm, it will not be used for the betterment of mankind, it will be exploited by the few at the top at the expense of the masses
because thats apparently who we are as a species
As a brit, I found it to be a really great documentary about the fact that you can be idealistic and still make it. There are, for sure, numerous reasons to give Deepmind shit: Alphabet, potential arms usage, "we're doing research, we're not responsible". The Oppenheimer aspect is not to be lost, we all have to take responsibility for wielding technology.
I was more anti-Deepmind than pro before this, but the truth is as I get older it's nicer to see someone embodying the aspiration of wanton benevolence (for whatever reason) based on scientific reasoning, than to not. To keep it away from the US and acknowledge the benefits of spreading the proverbial "love" to the benefit of all (US included) shows a level of consideration that should not be under-acknowledged.
I like this documentary. Does AGI and the search for it scare me? Hell yes. So do killer mutant spiders descending on earth post nuclear holocaust. It's all about probabilities. To be honest: disease X freaks me out more than a superintelligence built by an organisation willing to donate the research to solve the problems of disease X. Google are assbiscuits, but Deepmind point in the right direction (I know more about their weather and climate forecasting efforts). This at least gave me reason to think some heart is involved...