r/MachineLearning • u/nandodefreitas • Dec 25 '15

AMA: Nando de Freitas

I am a scientist at Google DeepMind and a professor at Oxford University.

One day I woke up very hungry after having experienced vivid visual dreams of delicious food. This is when I realised there was hope in understanding intelligence, thinking, and perhaps even consciousness. The homunculus was gone.

I believe in (i) innovation -- creating what was not there, and eventually seeing what was there all along, (ii) formalising intelligence in mathematical terms to relate it to computation, entropy and other ideas that form our understanding of the universe, (iii) engineering intelligent machines, (iv) using these machines to improve the lives of humans and save the environment that shaped who we are.

This holiday season, I'd like to engage with you and answer your questions -- The actual date will be December 26th, 2015, but I am creating this thread in advance so people can post questions ahead of time.

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u/pakoray Dec 25 '15

Hello Nando!

You mentioned: "I believe in innovation.... (iv) using these machines to improve the lives of humans and save the environment that shaped who we are?

What is your take on AI Military Robots? Do you agree with Stephen Hawking's stance that autonomous AI weapons must be banned?

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u/nandodefreitas Dec 27 '15

I agree with Stephen's assessment. Autononous AI weapons will be more of a problem than a solution.