Demis Hassabis: AI will be 10x bigger, faster than Industrial Revolution
Demis Hassabis, the visionary head of Google DeepMind, foresees artificial intelligence ushering in a transformation far exceeding the Industrial Revolution, both in scale and speed. He predicts this shift could be “10 times bigger… and maybe 10 times faster,” potentially leading to an era of “incredible productivity” and “radical abundance.”
Hassabis, at 49, stands out among Nobel laureates not just for his relatively young age or mixed heritage (Greek-Cypriot father, Chinese-Singaporean mother), but for his background as a state-educated chess prodigy. He recently received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, an acknowledgement of DeepMind’s AlphaFold database, which solved the previously unfathomable structures of proteins – the fundamental building blocks of life. This breakthrough, which has made the structures of over 200 million proteins publicly available, promises myriad medical advances.
Despite this success, Hassabis expresses a nuanced view on AI’s rapid public deployment. He admits he would have preferred to keep the technology “in the lab for longer and done more things like AlphaFold, maybe cured cancer.” Yet, he acknowledges the benefits of public engagement, seeing it as crucial for society to normalize and adapt to AI, and for governments to engage in discussions.
Hassabis’s journey into AI began early. His childhood was shaped by competitive chess from age four to thirteen, instilling a strategic mindset. While his family leaned towards the arts, Hassabis was drawn to science and technology, idolizing figures like Alan Turing and Richard Feynman. He used his chess winnings to buy early home computers, teaching himself to code and developing the hit game “Theme Park” at just 17, which showcased early AI elements by reacting to player actions.
After studying computer science at the University of Cambridge and earning a PhD in neuroscience from University College London, Hassabis co-founded DeepMind in 2010 with Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman. Their ambitious mission: “Solve intelligence and then use it to solve everything else.” The company quickly garnered attention, demonstrating an AI capable of mastering Atari video games without prior knowledge. Early investors included Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, though Musk initially focused on space exploration until Hassabis highlighted AI’s potential as an existential risk that a move to Mars wouldn’t solve.
In 2014, Google acquired DeepMind for £400 million. Hassabis insisted on keeping the company in London, believing in the untapped talent outside Silicon Valley and the importance of a global approach to AI development. DeepMind continued its groundbreaking work, famously defeating a Go grandmaster in 2016 and achieving the AlphaFold breakthrough.
However, the AI landscape shifted dramatically in 2020 with the public release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT3. This caught many, including Google, by surprise. Hassabis notes that while leading labs had similar systems, they hadn’t fully grasped the breadth of their potential applications. This event spurred a new phase of intense competition, with DeepMind becoming “the engine room of Google,” integrating AI into every aspect of its business, from search summaries and the Gemini smart assistant to image generators and translation tools. The competitive environment has also led to significant talent poaching, with companies like Meta, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft heavily investing in their own AI divisions.
The ultimate frontier for Hassabis is Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – the point at which AI matches or exceeds human cognitive capabilities. He anticipates this could occur within the next five to ten years, potentially marking the final years of pre-AGI civilization. Hassabis paints a utopian vision of a world of “radical abundance,” where AGI accelerates breakthroughs in medicine, materials science, and energy, leading to unprecedented prosperity. He emphasizes that the challenge lies in ensuring this prosperity is distributed fairly, a political rather than technological question.
Despite his optimism, Hassabis acknowledges the profound societal issues AI presents, including deepfakes, job displacement, vast energy consumption, and ethical concerns. Addressing the energy demands of future AI datacentres, he argues that the climate solutions and other benefits derived from these models will far outweigh their energy costs. On the issue of job replacement and the prospect of humans “never needing to work again,” Hassabis admits this will be “one of the biggest things we’re gonna have to figure out.” He suggests that society will increasingly lean into non-utility pursuits like sports, arts, and philosophy, as time and resources become abundant.
As a “cautious optimist,” Hassabis believes in human ingenuity and adaptability. He draws a parallel to the Industrial Revolution, acknowledging its disruptions but asserting its overall benefit to humanity. While the upcoming AI revolution will be significantly larger and faster, he expresses confidence that humanity will navigate the changes, hopefully for the better.