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John Carmack's Keen Technologies AGI company raises $20 million of funding

John Carmack's latest venture has raised a substantial amount of money thanks to a few helpful donors.

Ozzie Mejia

August 19, 2022 5:20 PM

Gabrielle Lurie/AFP/Getty Images

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While QuakeCon is going down this weekend, one of the fathers of id Software is continuing to explore new ventures in the tech world. His latest one is Keen Technologies, a new company centered on artificial general intelligence. On Friday, John Carmack noted that the company has already raised $20 million USD in capital.

The news came from Carmack himself on his own Twitter account, isolating a soundbite from his recent appearance on the Lex Fridman Podcast (embed found above). According to TechCrunch, the money comes from some noted luminaries in the tech world, including GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Cue founder Daniel Gross, Stripe co-founder and CEO Patrick Collison, Shopify co-founder and CEO Tobi Lutke, and the Sequoia venture fund. Carmack notes that he will more diligent about this pursuit, knowing that others have contributed money towards it.

Artificial general intelligence is a category of AI that tasks it with performing various broader human functions. Think of something like an android or the like. While some in the science community have cast doubt over the ultimate viability of such an endeavor, there are a few like Carmack, who feel that AGI is achievable in our lifetime. The id Software co-founder told Fridman on the aforementioned podcast appearance that AGI could lead to universal remote workers who are capable of more complex lines of thought.

It should be noted that Carmack adds that this will not take away from his presence with Meta. Carmack will remain a consultant with the social media giant on various matters related to Meta's VR program.

It should be interesting to see what Carmack is able to make of Keen Technologies and whether it leads to a world closer to what we've seen in various works of science fiction. Shacknews will follow this story and report on any intriguing updates.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?