Scott Brown & Dileep George, Co-Founders, Vicarious Systems

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SCOTT BROWN & DILEEP GEORGE, CO-FOUNDERS, VICARIOUS SYSTEMS, TALK ABOUT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AT BLOOMBERG TV

FEBRUARY 14, 2011

SPEAKERS: BETTY LIU, BLOOMBERG NEWS ANCHOR

SCOTT BROWN, CO-FOUNDER, VICARIOUS SYSTEMS

DILEEP GEORGE, CO-FOUNDER, VICARIOUS SYSTEMS

09:46

BETTY LIU, BLOOMBERG NEWS ANCHOR: Silicon Valley bigwigs like Facebook backers Peter Thiel and Sean Parker are now backing a new venture, an artificial intelligence startup that is building software to think and learn like humans. It is called Vicarious Systems and for more we are joined by the Vicarious Systems' co-founders, Scott Brown and also Dileep George. Gentlemen, thank you so much for making the time to be with us. And -

SCOTT BROWN, CO-FOUNDER, VICARIOUS SYSTEMS: Thanks for having us, Betty.

LIU: Very briefly I just want to explain to our viewers, and you correct me if I am wrong, this is essentially sort of like a chip, right, that is within computers that help these machines or that make these machines think more like human beings learn and that sort of thing. Where do you see this most applicable? Scott, you want to take that?

BROWN: It is actually software for right now. I am sure there will be opportunities to turn it into chips in the future, but right now it is just software.

LIU: Okay.

BROWN: And it is the very first step towards building what is true artificial intelligence as you describe it that we are taking is to just focus on building a vision system that can recognize objects in photographs and videos. And we think that that component of that larger goal to build intelligence software will have broad applications in many industries from everything from healthcare, to manufacturing to retail.

LIU: And, Dileep, give me the potential here. Give me some numbers here.

DILEEP GEORGE, CO-FOUNDER, VICARIOUS SYSTEMS: Okay. In terms of potential I think this will be, going to be bigger than the Internet. It is very hard to predict the future. A famous computer scientist once said that the best way to predict the future is to invent it, so I can tell you in terms of how it will unfold from what we are building.

So, as Scott mentioned, we are building a vision system first, and this will understand medias and videos just like the way humans do and it will have wide-ranging implications in the field of medicine, for example, to understand a slide and say what it is in it and whether that tumor is cancerous or not. So it will have wide-ranging implications in many fields.

LIU: Okay.

GEORGE: And once we have done that we will let this system impact with the environment and learn cause and effect, kind of playing being coupled with the environment.

LIU: Okay.

GEORGE: And everything that we call high level intelligence build on top of this knowledge about interactions with the world, so this can be revolutionary for fields like robotics and we will see that happening maybe in about ten years.

LIU: Okay. So -

GEORGE: And if -

LIU: No. Go ahead.

GEORGE: If everything goes well we should have real human-like intelligence within about 15 years.

LIU: In about 15 years, all right. And, Dileep, that is a tall order. Bigger than the Internet is what you are saying. Scott, I know we were saying that some Facebook investors like Peter Thiel have invested in your company, and also some Facebook employees, or executives as well. First off, how much did they invest in your company? Can you say?

BROWN: I don't think we are talking about that right now, but we can say that it's - it was less than $10 million. It doesn't take a lot to start an artificial intelligence company. Your primary cost drivers are researchers who can study the problem, and run experiments and develop the software, so it is not a high capital expenditure kind of investment.

LIU: Okay. And the fact that there are so many Facebook people, I guess you would call them, interested in this, does this mean that it has some application then to social networking, to Facebook?

BROWN: I think so. You - we have seen a media explosion with Facebook in terms of the number of pictures and videos that people post every day and Facebook, you may not realize this, but Facebook is actually the world's largest photo sharing website by far. And having software that can automatically understand what is in an image, what kinds of things you like to take pictures of, where you have been, who your friends are, -

LIU: Right.

BROWN: - and help make your social world richer I think would be very valuable, but I am not sure that is the reason why these investors and these, the Facebook co-founder was interested in us. I think it is more to do with being passionate about technology that has the potential to create transformative change.

LIU: Right. And quickly, I know you mentioned that it is less than $10 million that they invested in your company. Do you think though, Scott of Dileep, that let's say five years ago, six years ago you would have gotten the doors open to people like that? Has it changed here for you? Has the game changed in Silicon Valley?

GEORGE: Well, so for this particular company probably five or ten years back we would not have been able to open the door. The game hasn't changed much in Silicon Valley in a sense that companies have been getting funded all the time and it is waiting until the right time for the right technology.

So I think now is the time for getting companies going in the field of artificial intelligence and in the field of building machines that mimic human capabilities. So now is the right time for that kind of investment, but probably not five or ten years back.

LIU: Scott, Dileep, thank you very much for joining us. I appreciate it, the co-founders of Vicarious Systems, an artificial intelligence company, very interesting.

09:52

***END OF TRANSCRIPT***

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