Desert Island Discs: Archive: 2016-201821 Mai 2017

Demis Hassabis

Kirsty Young's castaway is Dr Demis Hassabis. An artificial intelligence researcher and co-founder and CEO of DeepMind, he is also a neuroscientist, a computer games designer, an entrepreneur, and in his youth, a world-class chess player.

Born in 1976, he was introduced to chess aged four and, by the age of twelve, was the world's second-highest ranked player for his age. With his winnings, he bought himself a PC and taught himself to code. After taking his A Levels two years early, before going to university he worked on one of the most successful computer games of the 1990s, Theme Park. He graduated from Cambridge with a double first, and returned to the computer games industry, founding his own company in his early twenties.

His passion had long been artificial intelligence and he says everything he's done has been part of a long-term plan to "solve intelligence" and then use intelligence "to solve everything else". He gained a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience where he deliberately chose to study topics where AI had failed so far: memory and imagination. After stints at MIT and Harvard, he co-founded his company in 2010, which was then acquired by Google in January 2014. In March 2016 their computer programme, AlphaGo, beat a world champion Go player at the game having taught itself how to play through a combination of two techniques - deep learning and reinforcement learning.

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

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Episoder(126)

Wayne McGregor

Kirsty Young's castaway is the choreographer Wayne McGregor. Despite his background in contemporary dance, he has been resident choreographer at the Royal Ballet - the first from outside the company -...

15 Jan 201736min

Pinky Lilani

Pinky Lilani, who was awarded a CBE in 2015 for services to women in business, is the founder of the annual Asian Women of Achievement Awards and the Women of the Future Awards. She also runs her own ...

8 Jan 201734min

Sir Kenneth Grange

Sir Kenneth Grange is a designer. He's been designing elements of our everyday lives for the past six decades. Born in London in 1929, he went to Willesden art school aged fourteen and four years late...

1 Jan 201737min

Gareth Malone

Gareth Malone is a choirmaster who has coaxed and cajoled people from nervous adults to reluctant teenagers to open their mouths and sing for the pure joy of it - in front of television cameras. Garet...

25 Des 201635min

Bruce Springsteen

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Bruce Springsteen.His career has brought him 20 Grammys, two Golden Globes, an Academy Award and his albums sell in their millions around the world. He grew up in ...

18 Des 201648min

Sir Philip Craven

Sir Philip Craven is the President of the International Paralympic Committee and a former wheelchair basketball athlete.Craven represented Great Britain in wheelchair basketball at five editions of th...

14 Des 201633min

Davina McCall

Davina McCall is an English television presenter. She began her career on MTV before moving to Channel 4 with the cult hit Streetmate.She was the presenter of Big Brother during its run on Channel 4 b...

11 Des 201635min

Emma Bridgewater

Emma Bridgewater is a British ceramic designer and businesswoman. She set up her pottery business in 1985 in Stoke-on-Trent, when many other manufacturers in the city were either closing down or going...

27 Nov 201635min