Reinforcement Learning: The Power Behind Modern Tech

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Reinforcement learning (RL) is actively utilized by major tech companies to enhance everyday technologies, such as improving battery life on Android devices and optimizing YouTube video recommendations. These applications demonstrate that RL can effectively leverage data infrastructure to deliver intelligent software solutions. However, the adoption of RL outside of large tech firms is limited, likely due to a combination of insufficient data infrastructure and the specific requirements needed for RL to be practical in diverse settings. This indicates that while RL holds significant potential, its real-world applications remain concentrated among organizations capable of supporting the necessary technological foundation.

After AlphaGo beat Lee Sedol, a young mechanical engineer at Google thought of another game reinforcement learning could win: energy optimization at data centers. Jim Gao convinced his bosses at the Google data center team to let him work with the DeepMind team to try. The initial pilot resulted in a 40% energy savings and led he and his co-founders to start Phaidra to turn this technology into a product.

Jim discusses the challenges of AI readiness in industrial settings and how we have to build on top of the control systems of the 70s and 80s to achieve the promise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. He believes this new world of self-learning systems and self-improving infrastructure is a key factor in addressing global climate change.

Hosted by: Sonya Huang and Pat Grady, Sequoia Capital

Mentioned in this episode:

Mustafa Suleyman: Co-founder of DeepMind and Inflection AI and currently CEO of Microsoft AI, known to his friends as “Moose”
Joe Kava: Google VP of data centers who Jim sent his initial email to pitching the idea that would eventually become Phaidra
Constrained optimization: the class of problem that reinforcement learning can be applied to in real world systems
Vedavyas Panneershelvam: co-founder and CTO of Phaidra; one of the original engineers on the AlphaGo project
Katie Hoffman: co-founder, President and COO of Phaidra
Demis Hassabis: CEO of DeepMind