General Intuition Secures $134M Seed Round to Enhance Agents’ Spatial Reasoning with Video Game Clips

Medal, a vibrant platform that allows gamers to upload and share their video game clips, is stepping into exciting new territory with the launch of a cutting-edge AI research lab. This innovative initiative, aptly named General Intuition, is leveraging an impressive archive of gaming videos to design and hone foundation models and AI agents capable of understanding the intricate spatial-temporal dynamics of objects and entities.

Unlocking the Power of Gaming Data

With a staggering dataset of 2 billion videos annually from 10 million active users immersed in thousands of games, General Intuition is poised to surpass traditional training resources like Twitch or YouTube. The venture’s unique proposition lies in its specialized data, which is more finely tuned to produce effective AI outcomes.

Pim de Witte, CEO of both Medal and General Intuition, elaborates on the potential of gaming content. He mentions that when gamers share their clips, they often showcase extreme examples—both highs and lows—that serve as invaluable edge cases for training algorithms. “This creates a selection bias toward precisely the kind of data that’s ideal for our purposes,” he said.

A Treasure Trove for AI

This abundant and targeted data has evidently captured the attention of tech giants, including OpenAI, which reportedly made a $500 million offer to acquire Medal. While neither company has commented on this acquisition attempt, it underscores the significance of Medal’s extensive video library in the advancement of AI technology.

Thanks to this attractive dataset, General Intuition has successfully raised an impressive $133.7 million in seed funding, with contributions from recognized venture firms like Khosla Ventures and General Catalyst, alongside Raine.

Image Credits: General Intuition

A Vision for the Future

The funds are set to bolster General Intuition’s team of researchers and engineers, all aiming to develop AI agents capable of not just interacting with their environment but excelling in applications spanning gaming to search-and-rescue missions.

De Witte shares exciting news about their advancements. General Intuition’s models can interpret unfamiliar environments and predict actions accurately, relying solely on visual input—just as a human player would. This capacity to navigate through spaces, using controller inputs, opens up immense possibilities for robotic systems, drones, and even autonomous vehicles.

Future Goals

General Intuition has laid out bold objectives: to craft new simulated worlds that can be utilized for training other agents and to enable autonomous navigation in entirely novel physical settings.

Distinctive Approach to AI Commercialization

While many competitors in the AI realm focus on creating world models, General Intuition’s model diverges from the rest. Rather than selling their models for training, such as those developed by DeepMind or World Labs, the startup concentrates on alternative applications to mitigate copyright concerns.

“Our aim is not to produce models that contend with game developers,” de Witte asserts.

Redefining Gaming Bots

The startup envisions significant advancements in gaming, particularly in the development of bots and non-player characters (NPCs). Unlike traditional deterministic bots that deliver uniform responses, General Intuition is crafting adaptive characters that evolve according to player interactions.

“[These bots] can adapt to any difficulty level,” observes Moritz Baier-Lentz, a founding member and partner at Lightspeed Ventures. He notes the excitement lies not in crafting unbeatable bots, but in evolving game dynamics that keep player engagement at a peak.

Bridging Humanitarian Efforts with AI

De Witte’s background in humanitarian efforts also influences the startup’s mission, particularly its focus on enhancing search-and-rescue drones that must synthesize information in areas devoid of GPS.

In their eyes, mastering spatial-temporal reasoning is essential for the pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI). While many leading AI labs are currently engrossed in developing sophisticated large language models (LLMs), General Intuition is focused on capabilities that these models inherently lack.

“As humans, we use text to describe our world, but in doing so, we often lose meaningful information about the essence of spatial-temporal relationships,” de Witte explains.

With its innovative approach, General Intuition is set to redefine not just gaming but also the broader landscape of artificial intelligence.

If you’re as excited about the future of AI as we are, embrace the journey ahead with us. Explore the potential of intelligent technologies, and let’s shape a world where creativity and innovation flourish together!