By 2013, when DeepMind was three years old, Google came knocking. A team of Google executives flew to London in a private jet, and Hassabis wowed them by showing them a prototype AI his team had taught to play the computer game Breakout. DeepMind’s signature technique behind the algorithm, reinforcement learning, was something Google wasn’t doing at the time. It was inspired by how the human brain learns, an understanding Hassabis had developed during his time as a neuroscientist. The AI would play the game millions of times, and was rewarded every time it scored some points. Through a process of points-based reinforcement, it would learn the optimum strategy. Hassabis and his colleagues fervently believed in training AI in game environments, and the dividends of the approach impressed the Google executives. “I loved them immediately,” says Alan Eustace, a former senior vice president at Google who led the scouting trip.
Hassabis’ focus on the dangers of AI was evident from his first conversation with Eustace. “He was thoughtful enough to understand that the technology had long-term societal implications, and he wanted to understand those before the technology was invented, not after the technology was deployed,” Eustace says. “It’s like chess. What’s the endgame? How is it going to develop, not just two steps ahead, but 20 steps ahead?”
Eustace assured Hassabis that Google shared those concerns, and that DeepMind’s interests were aligned with its own. Google’s mission, Eustace said, was to index all of humanity’s knowledge, make it accessible, and ultimately raise the IQ of the world. “I think that resonated,” he says. The following year, Google acquired DeepMind for some $500 million. Hassabis turned down a bigger offer from Facebook. One reason, he says, was that, unlike Facebook, Google was “very happy to accept” DeepMind’s ethical red lines “as part of the acquisition.” (There were reports at the time that Google agreed to set up an independent ethics board to ensure these lines were not crossed.) The founders of the fledgling AI lab also reasoned that the megacorporation’s deep pockets would allow them access to talent and computing power that they otherwise couldn’t afford.