Databricks Co-Founder Wins Prestigious ACM Award, Says AGI is Already Here

Matei Zaharia, co-founder and CTO of Databricks, has won the prestigious ACM Prize in Computing, an award that comes with a $250,000 cash prize. In an exclusive interview with TechCrunch, Zaharia discussed his views on the current state of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and the future of AI research.

Databricks was founded in 2009 by Zaharia, who was just 28 years old at the time. He had developed a way to speed up the results of slow, clunky, big data projects, which he released as an open-source project called Spark. Big data was a major challenge in those days, and Spark turned the tech industry on its ear.

Since then, Zaharia has helmed the engineering at Databricks, growing it into a cloud storage giant and now a data foundation for AI and agents. Along the way, the company has raised over $20 billion, valuing it at $134 billion, and hit $5.4 billion in revenue.

The ACM Prize in Computing is one of the most prestigious awards in the field of computer science, and Zaharia's win is a testament to his groundbreaking contributions to the field. In his acceptance speech, Zaharia donated the $250,000 cash prize to an as-yet-to-be-determined charity.

When asked about his views on AGI, Zaharia said, "AGI is here already. It's just not in a form that we appreciate."

He warned against treating AI like humans, saying that we should "stop trying to apply human standards to these AI models."

Zaharia is optimistic about the future of AI research, and believes that it will soon become universal. He said, "Not that many people need to build applications, but lots of people need to understand information. Eventually we'll make AI work better for us by having it lean into its strengths: telling us what every rattle in our car means, or scanning beyond text and images to include radio and microwaves, or, what he's seeing students do now, simulate molecular-level changes and predict their effectiveness."

He is most excited about how AI can help automate research on everything from biology experiments to data compilation.

"The thing that I'm most excited about is what I'd call AI for search, but specifically for research or engineering," he said.

As a professor and product engineer, Zaharia is passionate about making AI work better for people. He believes that AI will soon become a powerful tool for understanding information and making informed decisions.

In conclusion, Matei Zaharia's win of the ACM Prize in Computing is a testament to his groundbreaking contributions to the field of computer science. His views on AGI and the future of AI research are both insightful and thought-provoking, and offer a glimpse into the exciting possibilities that AI holds for the future.

Zaharia's full interview with TechCrunch can be found here.

• The ACM Prize in Computing is one of the most prestigious awards in the field of computer science.
• Matei Zaharia, co-founder and CTO of Databricks, has won the ACM Prize in Computing.
• AGI is already here, but it's not in a form that we appreciate.
• We should stop trying to apply human standards to these AI models.
• AI will soon become universal and will be used to automate research and make informed decisions.
• The future of AI research is exciting and holds many possibilities for understanding information and making informed decisions.