Dr Demis Hassabis, founder of DeepMind, will deliver the Royal Television Society (RTS) and Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Joint Public Lecture at the British Museum on Wednesday 4 November. The lecture will be chaired by Tim Davie, CEO of BBC Worldwide and director, global.
DeepMind is a General Artificial Intelligence (AI) company which was acquired by Google in 2014 in its largest ever European acquisition. In his lecture, titled, ‘Artificial intelligence and the future’, Demis will draw on his eclectic experiences as an AI researcher, neuroscientist and video games designer to discuss what is happening at the cutting edge of AI research, its future impact, and how developing AI may help us better understand the human mind, including the nature of imagination and creativity.
Speaking about the event, Hassabis said, “I’m looking forward to talking about our goal of developing artificial general intelligence and how it can help us solve big challenges in the world.”
Theresa Wise, CEO of the RTS, added: “Following the success of last year’s joint public lecture delivered by Dr Mike Lynch OBE, we are thrilled to be teaming up with the IET once again to offer audiences the chance to hear from the brilliant Dr Demis Hassabis. The evening promises to be a fascinating glimpse into an incredible, and rapidly approaching future.”
Naomi Climer, IET president, said: “Dr Hassabis is a world expert on artificial intelligence and we are delighted to be hosting this lecture with the Royal Television Society.
“This lecture forms an important part of the IET’s remit to inspire, inform and influence. Engineering and technology are central to our everyday lives and artificial intelligence represents a particularly exciting area of technology that is set to transform our quality of life in the future.”
Hassabis is a former child chess prodigy, who finished his A-levels two years early before coding the multi-million selling simulation game Theme Park aged 17. Following graduation from Cambridge University with a double first in computer science he founded the pioneering video games company Elixir Studios producing award-winning games for Microsoft and Universal.
After a decade of experience leading successful technology startups, Demis returned to academia to complete a PhD in cognitive neuroscience at UCL, followed by postdocs at MIT and Harvard, before founding DeepMind. His research connecting memory with imagination was listed in the top ten scientific breakthroughs of 2007 by the journal Science. Demis is a five-times World Games Champion, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and the recipient of the Royal Society’s Mullard Award 2014.