AlphaGo creator David Silver raises $1.1 billion for AI superintelligence startup

David Silver, the Google DeepMind researcher behind the AlphaGo program, has founded a new company called Ineffable Intelligence and raised $1.1 billion in seed funding at a $5.1 billion valuation. Silver told WIRED that the company will pursue superintelligence by focusing on reinforcement learning, in which AI models learn capabilities through trial and error, rather than by scaling up large language models. He described the LLM approach as relying on a “fossil fuel” of human data, whereas systems that learn for themselves are a “renewable fuel” that can improve without limit. Ineffable Intelligence plans to place AI agents inside simulations so they can learn to achieve goals and collaborate. The approach has attracted investment from Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Ventures, and Nvidia, and has drawn researchers from Google DeepMind. Silver also said he intends to give all equity proceeds to charity. “Any money that I make from Ineffable will go to high-impact charities that save as many lives as possible,” he said.