Sakana AI hires Jürgen Schmidhuber, inventor of deep learning, world models, and your next ChatGPT update
Tokyo startup Sakana AI hired Jürgen Schmidhuber as Chief Scientific Advisor to steer its recursive self-improvement research lab.
Sakana AI named Jürgen Schmidhuber, whom it calls the 'father of modern AI', as Chief Scientific Advisor, crediting his 1990 world models work and 1991 deep learning techniques. Schmidhuber will help steer Sakana's new RSI lab, which aims to build a self-reinforcing research loop that makes machines smarter. Sakana says his ideas shaped projects like the Darwin Gödel Machine and The AI Scientist, and plans to gather a critical mass of experts in Tokyo.
- Schmidhuber hired as Chief Scientific Advisor at Sakana AI
- Will help steer new RSI lab for recursive self-improvement
- Sakana credits his 1990-1991 world model and deep learning work
- Company aims to build 'physical AI powered by world models'
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Silicon Valley's next big AI idea is probably already sitting in a 1991 paper by Sakana AI's new chief advisor. The Tokyo-based startup has hired Jürgen Schmidhuber, whom it calls the "father of modern AI," as Chief Scientific Advisor. Sakana credits him with early work on world models in 1990 and with the 1991 deep learning techniques behind much of today's AI boom. His 1987 thesis on meta-learning and recursive self-improvement, where AI keeps improving itself, started nearly four decades of research into how machines can learn to learn. Sakana says those ideas directly shaped its projects like the Darwin Gödel Machine and The AI Scientist.
Japan is the birthplace of foundational neural network architectures and advanced robotics. It is a privilege to join Sakana AI to help bridge these two worlds. The future of intelligence is not just language; it is physical AI powered by world models. Sakana AI is uniquely positioned to reclaim Japan’s legacy of innovation by building autonomous systems that can truly understand, simulate, and interact with the physical universe.
Jürgen Schmidhuber
Schmidhuber will help steer Sakana's new RSI lab, which aims to build a self-reinforcing research loop that makes machines smarter. To do that, Sakana wants to gather a "critical mass of world-class experts" in Tokyo, it says.
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