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Demis Hassabis's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Demis Hassabis recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Demis Hassabis's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1

Consider Phlebas (Culture, #1)

The first book in Iain M. Banks's seminal science fiction series, The Culture. Consider Phlebas introduces readers to the utopian conglomeration of human and alien races that explores the nature of war, morality, and the limitless bounds of mankind's imagination.

The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no...
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Elon MuskSpaceX, the rocketry firm he founded in 2002, owns two ocean-going barges that serve as mobile landing pads for its rockets. One is called Just Read the Instructions, the other Of Course I Still Love You. Both are named after sentient spaceships in the “Culture” books, all of which have similarly playful names (one warship, which spends most of its time waiting idly to be called up for action, is... (Source)

Demis Hassabisexcited for this, Banks' Culture series is brilliant. Consider Phlebas is one of my favourite books, I read it back in the day when I was programming Theme Park, the cheat code for the game is 'Horza', the main character from the book... https://t.co/rUPwVpZU1f (Source)

John QuigginIain Banks is the writer you probably think of as being furthest from utopia in all sorts of ways. But the underlying conceit is that this is a post-scarcity society where people are free from any kind of material concerns. If they want to tear down their existing planet and build a whole new one, they can just go ahead and do it. It’s quite a successful imagining of what things might be like,... (Source)

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2

Game Changer

AlphaZero's Groundbreaking Chess Strategies and the Promise of AI

It took AlphaZero only a few hours of self-learning to become the chess player that shocked the world.

The artificial intelligence system, created by DeepMind, had been fed nothing but the rules of the Royal Game when it beat the world’s strongest chess engine in a prolonged match. The selection of ten games published in December 2017 created a worldwide sensation: how was it possible to play in such a brilliant and risky style and not lose a single game against an opponent of superhuman strength?

For Game Changer, Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan investigated...
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Recommended by Bertalan Meskó, Demis Hassabis, and 2 others.

Bertalan MeskóGame Changer is simply the best book I've read this year. It's not only about one of the most exciting stories ever (how #AlphaGo and AlphaGo Zero were developed to beat the best players in chess and go), but it's also a detective story for #chess players -a cognitive orgasm! https://t.co/VCCazsNSKc (Source)

Demis HassabisCongratulations to all of the authors on this year’s shortlist for @ecfchess book of the year, including @gmmds & @NatashaRegan123 for Game Changer, their brilliant book about #AlphaZero https://t.co/chyv1Wa18N (Source)

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