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Shane Legg

Original nameShane Legg

New Zealand Computer Scientist, Co-Founder of DeepMind

The Math Behind the Algorithm · Theoretical Founders

The Co-Founding of DeepMindPopularizing the Term "Artificial General Intelligence" (AGI)Research on the Formal Definition of General Intelligence

Who they are

Shane Legg is a New Zealand computer scientist who in 2010 co-founded DeepMind with Demis Hassabis and Mustafa Suleyman, long serving as chief scientist, one of the most important early popularizers of the term "artificial general intelligence" (AGI) — a term used to distinguish "a general intelligent system able, like a human, to handle flexibly all manner of different tasks" from the then-mainstream "specialized AI system good only at a single specific task" — now the most-used core concept in the whole industry’s discussion of the ultimate goal of technological development. Legg’s doctoral research direction was devoted to trying to propose a more formal, computable definition framework for "intelligence," a concept long lacking a rigorous mathematical definition, a scholarly background that also long led him to take on the more theory-oriented research work within DeepMind.

Primary sourcesLegg’s doctoral thesis Machine Super Intelligence (2008)

Key stories

Giving "Intelligence" a Mathematical Definition

During his doctoral research Legg noticed that, though the field of "AI" had developed for over half a century, scholarship still lacked consensus on how "intelligence" itself should be rigorously defined, and he tried to propose a more formal, in-principle-computable framework of the definition of intelligence, a scholarly training that also let him thereafter continue to play the role of providing theoretical guidance for DeepMind’s overall research direction, the core term "artificial general intelligence" thereafter widely adopted in the industry also springing from his thought in this period.

Relationships

Ally

🏆Demis Hassabis 🤝Mustafa Suleyman

Echoes today

Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.

The industry popularization of the term "AGI"The term "artificial general intelligence" that Legg systematically popularized early on has now become the core concept most commonly used across the industry when discussing the ultimate goal of technical development.

Appears in

Human-Machine Play and the Practical Turn of Machine LearningThe Birth of DeepMind

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