China’s First Gaming Billionaire Aims to Create ‘Smarter-Than-Man’ AI

Chen Tianqiao conquered China’s gaming world in the early 2000s, becoming one of the country’s richest men before mental health issues prompted him to walk away from his business empire. Now, he’s reinventing himself in the US and pursuing a more elusive target: the source code of human consciousness to make AI smarter than humans.

Using a fortune minted from his earlier successes — including Shanda’s 2004 Nasdaq listing following hits like The Legend of Mir II — Chen is now developing what he calls “discoverative AI.” It’s a form of AI with the ability to learn and respond in ways that surpass current large language models which are largely designed to mimic people when generating content.