Introduction
Shane Legg CBE is a machine learning researcher and cofounder of DeepMind Technologies, acquired by Google in 2014.
Early life
Legg attended Rotorua Lakes High School in Rotorua, on New Zealand's North Island. He completed hisundergraduate studies at Waikato University. He obtained his MSc degree with the thesis Solomonoff Inductionwith Cristian S. Calude at the University of Auckland. He received his PhD degree from University of Lugano working on theoretical models of super intelligent machines (AIXI) with Prof. Marcus Hutter. His doctoral thesis entitled Machine Super Intelligencewas completed in 2008. He was awarded the $10,000 Canadian Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence prize.
Career
Legg's main research interests are in artificial intelligence, both theory and practice. In particular, he is interested in measures of intelligence for machines, neural networks, artificial evolution, reinforcement learning and the theory of learning. He has worked on these topics in both commercial and academic environments.
DeepMind Technologies
In 2010, Legg cofounded the start-up DeepMind Technologies along with Demis Hassabis and Mustafa Suleyman. Hassabis and Legg first met at UCL's Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, where Legg was a research associate.
Legg was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2019 Birthday Honours for services to the science and technology sector and to investment.