The Infinity Machine (book)
A knowledge pack based on Sebastian Mallaby's 2026 book about Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the quest for superintelligence. Tracks the story from a chess-prodigy childhood in Finchley through Atari and AlphaGo, the founding rivalry with OpenAI, the AlphaFold breakthrough, ChatGPT shock, and the Gemini era.
565 cards12 lessonsFree
INFINITY MACHINE · FACT
The Sweetness of discovery
Mallaby opens the book on the moment Demis Hassabis received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for AlphaFold. Hassabis calls the feeling of a scientific breakthrough "the sweetness" — the brief, private rush when, having struggled against a problem for years, you suddenly see it crack. The whole book is framed as a chase after that feeling.
Ten of its 565 cards, from the same pack file the app reads.
12 lessons.
Each lesson has a study guide to read and objectives you can test yourself on. Its cards and games show up in your feed.
- 01
The Sweetness — Why this book matters
Opening the book · The book's argument
- 02
Destiny — Hassabis as a child prodigy
Finchley and chess · Bullfrog and the games path
- 03
Cambridge and Elixir
Cambridge: deep philosophical questions · Elixir Studios
- 04
Gang of Three — Legg and Suleyman
Shane Legg and the word AGI · Mustafa Suleyman
- 05
Founding DeepMind
Thiel and the pitch · Google takes the wheel
- 06
Atari to AlphaGo
Atari and the DQN · AlphaGo and Move 37
- 07
The OpenAI rivalry
Musk, Altman and the split · Anthropic and the firing
- 08
AlphaFold — Fermat for biology
A promise after Seoul · CASP14 and the 200 million
- 09
RaceGPT and Bletchley
The ChatGPT shock · Governments arrive
- 10
Step by Step — Gemini and the comeback
Gemini ships · Mallaby's closing register
- 11
Quick Recall — Key people and places
People and places
- 12
Key Concepts
Key People · Key Things · Key Events
- Cards
- 565
- Lessons
- 12
- Version
- 1.0.5
- Language
- English
The whole pack is one file. Read the pack file ↗
The app is on its way to the App Store.
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