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David Silver-Researcher (AlphaGo Zero)

David Silver
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Chemnitz, United Kingdom

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Experience

Oct 2017 - Oct 2017
London, United Kingdom

Researcher (AlphaGo Zero)

DeepMind

Position summary
Researcher (AlphaGo Zero) at DeepMind
Industries
Information Technology
Business areas
Information Technology
Research and Development
  • Developed a reinforcement learning algorithm that achieves superhuman proficiency in the game of Go starting from random play without human data, guidance, or domain knowledge beyond basic rules.

  • Achieved a 100-0 win record against the champion-defeating version of AlphaGo.

  • Replaced separate policy and value networks with a single neural network architecture consisting of many residual blocks of convolutional layers with batch normalization and rectifier non-linearities.

  • Implemented a simplified tree search that relies on a single neural network for position evaluation and move sampling without performing Monte-Carlo rollouts.

  • Incorporated lookahead search inside the training loop to achieve rapid improvement and stable learning.

  • Rediscovered fundamental elements of human Go knowledge, including joseki (corner sequences), fuseki (opening strategies), and life-and-death concepts from first principles.

  • Optimized the system to run on a single machine with 4 Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) in the Google Cloud.

Jan 2017 - Jan 2017
London, United Kingdom

Researcher (AlphaGo Master)

DeepMind

Position summary
Researcher (AlphaGo Master) at DeepMind
Industries
Information Technology
Business areas
Research and Development
  • Defeated the strongest human professional players 60-0 in online games in January 2017.

  • Utilized a specialized neural network architecture and reinforcement learning algorithm consistent with the AlphaGo Zero framework.

  • Integrated handcrafted features and rollouts into the search algorithm.

  • Initialized training through supervised learning from human expert data.

Mar 2016 - Mar 2016
London, United Kingdom

Researcher (AlphaGo Lee)

DeepMind

Position summary
Researcher (AlphaGo Lee) at DeepMind
Industries
Information Technology
Business areas
Research and Development
  • Defeated Lee Sedol, the winner of 18 international titles, in March 2016.

  • Implemented a distributed system over multiple machines utilizing 48 Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) to evaluate neural networks during search.

  • Trained the value network using outcomes from fast games of self-play by AlphaGo.

  • Employed a larger policy and value network architecture compared to earlier versions, featuring 12 convolutional layers.

Oct 2015 - Oct 2015
London, United Kingdom

Researcher (AlphaGo Fan)

DeepMind

Position summary
Researcher (AlphaGo Fan) at DeepMind
Industries
Information Technology
Business areas
Product Development
Research and Development
  • Defeated the European champion Fan Hui in October 2015.

  • Developed and utilized two deep neural networks: a policy network to output move probabilities and a value network to output position evaluations.

  • Trained the policy network initially by supervised learning to predict human expert moves and subsequently refined it using policy-gradient reinforcement learning.

  • Trained the value network to predict the winner of games played by the policy network against itself.

  • Combined neural networks with a Monte-Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) to provide a sophisticated lookahead search.

Researcher

Google Inc.

Position summary
Researcher at Google Inc.
Industries
Information Technology
Business areas
Research and Development
  • Ioannis Antonoglou: Published extensive research in AI and machine learning, contributing to 36 publications and accumulating over 10,375 citations.

  • Yutian Chen: Published advanced research in machine learning, contributing to 24 publications and accumulating over 77,831 citations.

Researcher

Microsoft

Position summary
Researcher at Microsoft
Industries
Information Technology
Business areas
Research and Development
  • Thore Graepel: Published high-impact research in the field of Artificial Intelligence, contributing to 206 publications with over 33,474 citations.

Languages

English
Native
Chinese
Advanced

Statistics

Experience

Total positions 6

Global experience

Countries worked in 1 (United Kingdom)
Primary country United Kingdom

Expertise

Recent roles Researcher (AlphaGo Zero), Researcher (AlphaGo Master), Researcher (AlphaGo Lee)

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Frequently asked questions

Have questions? Find more information here.

David is based in Chemnitz, United Kingdom.

David speaks the following languages: English (Native), Chinese (Advanced).

David has at least 0 years of experience. During this time, David has worked in at least 4 different roles and for 1 company. The average length of individual experience is 0 months. Note that David may not have shared all experience and actually has more experience.

Based on recent experience, David would be well-suited for roles such as: Researcher (AlphaGo Zero), Researcher (AlphaGo Master), Researcher (AlphaGo Lee).

David's most recent position is Researcher (AlphaGo Zero) at DeepMind.

David is most experienced in industries like Information Technology.

David is most experienced in business areas like Information Technology, Research and Development, and Product Development.

The availability of David needs to be confirmed.

Daily rate distribution

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Daily rate avg. 840 €

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Median rate 920 €

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Calculated based on our freelancers’ daily rates as of 25 Aug 2026. Actual rates may vary depending on seniority level, experience, skill specialization, project complexity, and engagement length.