For the last couple years, it has been evident that Google co-founder Sergey Brin is back in the building. This week, he sent a clear message to hundreds of employees in Google’s DeepMind AI division, known as GDM: the pressure to win the AGI race is on.

“It has been 2 years of the Gemini program and GDM,†begins his note, which The New York Times first reported on yesterday and I’m publishing below in full. “We have come a long way in that time with many efforts we should feel very proud of. At the same time competition has accelerated immensely and the final race to AGI is afoot. I think we have all the ingredients to win this race but we are going to have to turbocharge our efforts.â€

Brin goes on to recommend that Google’s AI teams work longer hours (“60 hours a week is the sweet spot of productivityâ€), come into the office “at least every week day,†prioritize “simple solutions†to problems, and generally move faster (“can’t wait 20 minutes to run a bit of pythonâ€). What stuck out the most to me was his last point: that Google’s AI products “are overrun with filters and punts of various kinds.†According to Brin, Google needs to “trust o …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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