This week, Demis Hassabis was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with two other researchers: David Baker and John M. Jumper, “for the artificial intelligence-based protein prediction systems” they worked on. Basically Hassabis and Jumper created an AI model that can predict the complex structures of proteinsa problem that remained unsolved for 50 years.
The genius of Hassabis
Of course you are wondering what does this have to do with the world of video games. That is, you may be wondering if you don’t know who Hassabis is, whose career began in our industry, under the wing of Peter Molyneux first in Bullfrog and then in Lionhead.
In recent years he has become an artificial intelligence guru, but he took his first steps in computing on a ZX Spectrum. His first project with Bullfrog was Syndicate, for which he created some of the levels. At just 17 years old he collaborated on the design of Theme Park with Molyneux himself, an epochal game that is still cited and loved today. Sold 1 million copies.
Hassabis then left gaming to study at Queens’ College, Cambridge, achieving a Double First in Computer Science Tripos in 1997. He then reunited with Molyneux, in Lionhead, to working on Black & White. After the project, he left to found his own software house, Elixir Studios, with which he made the unfortunate Republic: The Revolutionwhich was neutered by Virgin, the publisher, before launch, coming out completely distorted, and Evil Genius, a well-made clone of Dungeon Keeper.
After the company’s bankruptcy in 2005, he returned to the academic world and then founded the AI startup DeepMindwhich was bought by Google for £400 million in 2014. Hassabis, now 48, had already been awarded the title “sir” for his AI studies earlier this year.
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