François Chollet, an influential AI researcher, is launching a brand new startup that goals to develop groundbreaking AI systems with novel designs.
The startup, Goodwill consist of an AI research and science laboratory. The goal is the “development and operationalization” of AGI. AGI, which stands for “artificial general intelligence,” typically refers to AI that may perform any task that a human can. It is a goal for a lot of AI corporations, including OpenAI.
“We are pursuing a distinct path to construct an AI able to true invention, adaptation and innovation,” Chollet wrote in a single Series of posts on X. “We consider we’ve a small but real probability to realize a breakthrough – to create an AI that may learn at the least as efficiently as humans and that may proceed to enhance over time with no bottlenecks in sight .”
Ndea plans to make use of a method called program synthesis together with other technical approaches to unlock AGI. Chollet believes that program synthesis, which allows AI to generalize previously unseen problems using just just a few examples, may also help overcome probably the most persistent problems in AI research.
Program synthesis is traditionally computationally intensive. However, Chollet believes that this limitation could be overcome – and that overcoming it should help speed up scientific progress.
“(We) are usually not the one ones recognizing the potential of program synthesis – it’s a method that each AI research lab is beginning to explore now,” says a blog post on Ndea’s website. “We are on the forefront of a pivotal moment within the history of science, and the world deserves every possible direct, unique try and construct AGI.”
Ndea, which Chollet co-founded with Zapier co-founder and AI chief Mike Knoop, has not disclosed whether the corporate has raised capital from outside investors. But the corporate is currently hiring for distant research positions, which suggests there may be at the least some financial support.
It's not daily that you just see people of this caliber @fchollet And @mikeknoop Decide to start out a business! I'm glad to be a supporter, but most significantly, their vision for how one can solve the difficult problems of AI is great. Our field is characterised by hype and hope –… https://t.co/7u6OT1vrHc
— Naveen Rao (@NaveenGRao) January 15, 2025
Knoop says he’s stepping away from his day-to-day work at Zapier to give attention to Ndea, but that he’ll remain a member of Zapier's board.
“We are putting together the perfect program synthesis team on this planet,” said Knoop said in a single article and discover things that may only occur organically after many years and even centuries.”
Chollet, who recently co-founded a nonprofit with Knoop to develop benchmarks for AGI, is the newest high-profile AI researcher to depart Big Tech to start out an independent AI lab. Chollet, who is maybe best often known as the creator of Keras, a classy open source API that could be used to construct AI models and tackle machine learning tasks, announced last November that he was leaving Google after nearly a decade develop into.
Ilya Sutskever, former chief scientist and co-founder of OpenAI, last 12 months founded Safe Superintelligence, an AI lab that has raised over $1 billion in capital from investors including Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz. Elsewhere, longtime Google AI researcher and Stanford academic Fei-Fei Li runs World Labs, an organization that develops AI systems that may generate video game-like 3D simulations.
