Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis gets UK knighthood for ‘services to artificial intelligence’

Demis Hassabis, CEO and certainly one of three founders of Google’s synthetic intelligence (AI) subsidiary DeepMind, has been awarded a knighthood within the U.Ok. for “providers to synthetic intelligence.”

Ian Hogarth, chair of the U.Ok. authorities’s just lately launched AI Safety Institute and beforehand founder of music startup Songkick, was awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for providers to AI; as was Matt Clifford, AI adviser to the U.Ok. authorities and co-founder of super-early-stage investor Entrepreneur First.

Prodigy

Hassabis was born in London in 1976, rising as a prodigy in numerous disciplines, and reaching master status at chess by the point he was an adolescent. He subsequently turned lead programmer at fabled U.Ok. online game developer Bullfrog Productions; graduated from the College of Cambridge with first-class honors in Pc Science; and labored in numerous AI and laptop science roles earlier than gaining a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from College School London (UCL).

Alongside Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman, who Microsoft hired from AI startup Inflection AI last week, Hassabis based DeepMind out of London in 2010.

Hassabis was awarded a CBE in 2017 for “providers to science and know-how” within the wake of some high-profile achievements at DeepMind — this included creating an AI system that beat the world champion of strategy board game Go. Nevertheless, the corporate additionally courted controversy after signing data-sharing deals with the U.Ok.’s Nationwide Well being Service (NHS). Quick-forward seven years, and it’s telling that his knighthood was awarded particularly for providers to “synthetic intelligence,” a subject that has catapulted into the mainstream consciousness over the previous 18 months resulting from applied sciences such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

The U.Ok. has been wanting to place itself on the forefront of the AI revolution, pushed by initiatives such because the AI Safety Summit which it hosted in England last November. And it sits among the many top-tier AI countries globally by way of R&D funding, behind the U.S. and China, with DeepMind serving as one of many U.Ok.’s best AI exports. After snapping up DeepMind in 2014 for north of $500 million, it has emerged as certainly one of Google’s most crucial belongings, as the most important know-how corporations battle it out for AI dominance — alongside Google Analysis, DeepMind is responsible for Gemini, Google’s rival to OpenAI’s GPT-branded household of enormous language fashions.

So it does make sense that the U.Ok. would search to honor certainly one of its most high-profile AI figureheads. Different notable figures from the know-how world to obtain knighthoods embody Apple’s Jonathan “Jony” Ive back in 2011 for “providers to design and enterprise.”

In centuries passed by, knighthoods had been usually reserved for army achievements, however immediately they’re often awarded for providers and achievements of nationwide significance — that may very well be contributions to science, sport, leisure and know-how. A knighthood is often proposed by the prime minister, authorities division, members of Parliament and even members of the general public, with the top of state — i.e. the king or queen at that given time — technically making the ultimate choice on who receives them.

The recipient doesn’t get any significant privileges off the again of their knighthood, however they get the cultural and social kudos related to being allowed to prefix their identify with “Sir.”