One signal

Update

What changed

Thore Graepel, one of the key minds behind AlphaGo, has left Google DeepMind to build a start-up focused on AI reasoning, with initial fundraising reportedly in the tens of millions of dollars. Bloomberg reports that later funding rounds could reach hundreds of millions, although no round has been announced as closed and the venture has not been named.

Graepel’s pitch is that the next significant advance in artificial intelligence will come from structured reasoning rather than simply making language models larger. The reported approach emphasises structured search and probabilistic planning, asking systems to evaluate possible futures and uncertainty instead of merely generating the most likely next response.

Graepel joined DeepMind in 2015, before AlphaGo defeated world champion Lee Sedol in 2016.

Sources and evidence

• Google DeepMind co-creator Thore Graepel raises funds for AI reasoning startup – Crypto Briefing: Bloomberg reports that former Google DeepMind researcher and AlphaGo co-creator Thore Graepel is raising initial funding in the tens of millions for an AI-reasoning start-up, with later rounds potentially reaching hundreds of millions. The reported venture favours structured search and probabilistic planning over simply scaling language models.

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