Ineffable Intelligence Aims to Revolutionize AI Learning

DeepMind's David Silver has raised $1.1 billion to build an AI that learns without human data.

Creating a "Superlearner" Without Human Input

Ineffable Intelligence, a British AI lab founded by former DeepMind researcher David Silver, has secured $1.1 billion in funding to create a 'superlearner' capable of discovering knowledge and skills through trial and error, without relying on human data. This ambitious project is led by Silver, a renowned expert in reinforcement learning.

According to its newly launched site, Ineffable aims to create an AI that can learn and improve its performance without being fed human strategies or game records. This is Silver's area of expertise, having developed programs that beat professional players at chess and the board game Go by learning purely from experience.

"If successful, this will represent a scientific breakthrough of comparable magnitude to Darwin: where his law explained all Life, our law will explain and build all Intelligence," claims Ineffable Intelligence's site.

Silver, a professor at University College London, was until recently leading the reinforcement learning team at Google-owned DeepMind, where he spent more than a decade before leaving to found this new venture. He has stated that any money he makes from Ineffable will go to high-impact charities that save as many lives as possible.

Led by Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners

The funding round was led by Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Index Ventures, Google, Nvidia, and others. Among those other investors are the British Business Bank and Sovereign AI, the U.K.'s recently launched sovereign venture fund for AI.

This $1.1 billion raise puts Ineffable Intelligence in the company of other AI ventures founded by star researchers, such as AMI Labs, co-founded by Turing Award winner and former Meta AI scientist Yann LeCun, which raised $1.03 billion at a $3.5 billion pre-money valuation.

A Growing AI Hub in London

While at DeepMind, Silver was involved in developing programs that beat professional players at chess and the board game Go by learning purely from experience, without being fed human strategies or game records — defeating the world's top computer programs in each game. The most notable of these was AlphaZero. Similarly, Ineffable Intelligence hopes that its superlearner will discover all knowledge from its own experience.

Its superlearner may lack experience, but the company doesn’t lack ambition. Ineffable Intelligence is part of a growing network of AI researchers and companies in London, which is becoming a hub for AI innovation. This is partly thanks to DeepMind’s continued presence after its acquisition by Google in 2014.

A Powerful Network of Alumni

This also translates into a powerful network of alumni, with several former DeepMind staffers reportedly set to join Ineffable’s executive team. When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.