Pushmeet Kohli

Meet the tech genius who trains the smart computers that are changing your world.

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Pushmeet Kohli is Vice President of Research at Google DeepMind. He's got some of the most advanced computer systems in the world under his command, and he leads DeepMind's science team in their mission to tackle some of the greatest challenges facing humanity.

The Week Junior Science+Nature got the chance to sit down with Kohli to learn more about artificial intelligence (AI), and why he believes that computers can solve really difficult problems such as treating diseases or finding a new source of energy that doesn't harm the planet.

Super-level intelligence

Kohli grew up in a city called Dehradun in northern India, close to the Himalayan mountain range. “When I was growing up,” Kohli told us, “I was extremely fascinated with computers – the fact that you can programme this machine to do so many amazing things, right?” He loved gaming, but was really keen on finding out the limits of what computers could do. “Could it pick up new skills, or talk with me?” he asked, “or could it really understand emotions?” These are the sorts of things we often think of as human abilities, but today companies like DeepMind are trying to build computers that can do exactly these things.