David Luan is the head of Amazon’s AGI research lab and in a new interview with OneZero’s Kashmir Hill, Luan explains how his team is using “large-scale self-play” within simulated environments to discover new superhuman strategies for everything from playing Go to conducting complex enterprise workflows, with the promise that agents will eventually become “the atomic building blocks of computing” and a key part of Amazon’s AI strategy.
Luan also discussed the recent trend of big tech buying smaller AI companies to acquire talent, often referred to as a “reverse acquihire,” noting it has become a common deal structure in recent years as Big Tech looks to consolidate esoteric AI talent, with Luan admitting he was part of such a deal when he joined Amazon from his previous AI venture.
As for what the future holds, Luan suggests that the field of AI will expand, but the talent pool will not, meaning elite AI Labs will continue to consolidate and grow, requiring ever-bigger mountains of capital to wield the increasingly powerful AI tools that will define the technological future.