Ripple and Stellar Founder Invests $1 Billion in Brain-Inspired AGI Development

Ripple and Stellar founder Jed McCaleb plans to invest $1 billion from his $3.9 billion cryptocurrency fortune into developing an AGI system based on human brain principles through his nonprofit, Astera Institute. According to Odaily, McCaleb has also pledged an additional $600 million to the field of neuroscience. Astera Institute, located in Emeryville, is currently working on recording neural activity patterns in mice performing tasks via brain-machine interfaces. The research aims to translate these findings into new AI architectures, with future experiments planned to include monkeys and humans. The AGI project at the institute is led by former DeepMind executive Dileep George, who intends to expand the lab to 30 researchers this year and publicly share their findings. McCaleb argues that the current mainstream Transformer architecture only achieves predictive capabilities and lacks essential elements like planning, decision-making, and motivation, necessitating exploration of new directions. He believes AI based on human brain principles is more likely to be understood and controlled by humans. Meanwhile, former Meta Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun's new lab, AMI, recently completed a $1 billion seed funding round to advance similar "world model" research. In contrast, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman believes that achieving AGI requires multiple moderate breakthroughs rather than a single new direction.