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Google DeepMind CEO Worries About a “Worst-Case” A.I Future, But Is Staying Optimistic | TIME | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Google DeepMind CEO Worries About a “Worst-Case” A.I Future, But Is Staying Optimistic
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What keeps you up at night?
For me, it's um this question of
international uh standards and
cooperation and and and also not just
between countries but also between
companies as we get and researchers as
we get um towards the final steps of um
uh AGI and and I think we're on the cusp
of that. You know, maybe we're 5 to 10
years out. Some people say shorter. I
wouldn't be surprised. It's a you know,
sort of like a probability distribution,
but it's coming. So either way, it's
Deis Sasabis co-ounded Deep Mind in 2010
and is now the CEO of the company which
was sold to Google in 2014. In 2024,
Habis shared the Nobel Prize in
Chemistry for the development of
Alphafold, an AI system that predicts
the 3D structure of proteins. In March,
Time reporter Billy Peragro interviewed
Asaris in London for the 2025 Time 100
list. For the purposes of the video,
could you explain what AGI stands for
and what it kind of means in a sentence?
AGI stands for artificial general
intelligence and we define that as a
system that is capable of exhibiting any
cognitive capability humans have. Could
you talk about AGI and when you first
realized maybe that that might be the
key to unlocking not just individual
scientific discoveries, but a whole sway
of them. So we've always been interested
in building general AI or AGI from the
beginning of Deep Mind. That was always
the aim. In fact, that was the original
aim of AI as a field back in the 1950s.
So in some senses, we're we're we're
kind of realizing that grand dream on
the way you can use those general
techniques uh for specialized solutions
to problems. So Alpha Fold is a good
example of that where um the problem's
well specified. its enormous value to
society and in this case biology and
medical research uh in its own right for
what it can do. So it doesn't really
matter what methods you use but you
start with the general methods and then
you add some specializations on top. Um
so it still uses neuronet networks and
those all the techniques we built for
our games and then it adds some new
things for protein specifically. Um, of
course we in the simultaneously we've
been advancing our general AI techniques
and now that's obviously in the world of
language but also more recently
multimodal foundational models that can
understand not just language uh or play
a game but actually um the whole entire
spatial world context that you're in and
start understanding about things like
the physics in the world and be able to
process um things like images and video
and sound.
So obviously this technology if it's
created will be very impactful. Could
you paint the best case scenario for me?
What does this world look like if we
create AGI? So the reason I've worked on
um AI and AGI my entire life really and
career is um because I believe if it's
done properly and responsibly it will be
the most beneficial technology ever
invented. So the kinds of things that um
I think we could be able to use it for,
you know, winding forward 10 plus years
from now is potentially curing maybe all
diseases with AI um and helping with
things like finding new energy sources
or helping develop new energy sources,
whether that's fusion or optimal
batteries or new materials like new
superconductors. Um I think uh some of
the biggest problems that face us today
as a society whether that's climate or
disease will be helped by uh AI
solutions. So um I think if if we wind
forward in 10 years time I think that
the optimistic view of it will be we'll
be in this sort of world of maximum
human flourishing traveling the stars
you know with with um all the
technologies that AI will help bring
about. You've also been quite vocal
about the need to do this responsibly to
avoid the risks. Uh could you paint the
worst case scenario for me? Sure. Well
look worst case I think has been covered
a lot in science fiction. Um, I think
the the two issues I worry about most
are AI is going to be this fantastic
technology if used in the right way, but
it's a dualpurpose technology and it's
unbelievably powerful. It's going to be
unbelievably powerful. So, um, what that
means though is that bad actors or would
be bad actors can repurpose that
technology for potentially harmful ends.
Um so one big challenge we have as a
field and as society is how do we enable
access to these technologies to the good
actors to do amazing things like cure
terrible diseases at the same time as
restricting access to those same
technologies to would be bad actors um
whether that's individuals to all the
way up to rogue nations uh and that's a
really hard uh conundrum to solve. Um
the second thing is uh AGI risk itself.
So risk from the technology itself as it
becomes more autonomous, more
agent-based like which is what's going
to happen over the next few years
because they'll be more useful for all
the good users. Um but how do we ensure
uh that we can stay in charge of those
systems, control them, interpret what
they're doing, understand them, put put
the right guard rails in place that are
not movable by very highly capable
systems that are self-improving. That is
also an extremely difficult challenge.
So those are the two main buckets of
risk. If we can get them right, then I
think we'll end up in this amazing
future. It's not a worst case scenario,
though. What does the worst case
scenario look like? Well, I think if you
get that wrong, then um you know, you've
got uh all these harmful use cases uh
being done with uh these systems, you
know, and that can range from uh um kind
of doing the opposite of what of what
we're trying to do without finding
cures. you could end up finding, you
know, toxins, these kinds of things with
those same uh uh same systems. And so a
lot of the cases, all the good use
cases, if you invert the the goals of
the system, uh you would get the the
sort of harmful cases. Um and as a
society, we've got to this is why I've
been sort of in favor of international
cooperation around this because the
systems wherever they're built or or
however they're built, uh they're going
to affect they can be distributed all
around the world. They're going to
affect everyone. um uh pretty much every
corner of the world. So um we need sort
of international standards I think
around um how these things systems get
built, what sort of designs and goals we
give them and how they're deployed and used.
used.
There's a lot of talk in the AI safety
world about
the degree to which these systems are
likely to do things like power seeking,
to be deceptive, to kind of, you know,
seek to uh disempower humans and and
escape their control. Do you have a
strong view on on whether that's like
the default path or is that a kind of
tail risk? Like what's your perception?
My my my feeling on that is that it the
risks are are unknown currently. So it
we you know there's a lot of people my
colleagues and um famous chewing award
winners on both sides of that argument
right some uh you know like Yan Lun
would say that there's no risk here it's
sort of um it's it's it's uh it's uh
it's all hype and then there are other
people who think we're you know it's
doomed by default right uh Jeff Hinton
and Joshua Benjamin people like that and
um I know all these people very well I
think some the right answer is somewhere
in the middle which is if you look at
that debate there's very smart people on
both sides of that debate So what that
tells me is that we don't know enough
about it yet to actually quantify the
risk. It might turn out that as we
develop these systems further, it's way
easier to align these systems or or keep
control of these systems than we thought
or we expected sort of hypothetically
from here. Some quite a lot of things
have turned out like that so far.
They've been easier than people thought
in including making them useful to the
world, you know, with just some fairly
simple RHF fine-tuning on top of these
models and then suddenly they become
useful chat bots. So that's interesting.
So there's some evidence towards the
fact that that things may be a little
bit easier than some of the uh uh uh uh
most pessimists were thinking, but in my
view there's still significant risk and
we've got to do research um carefully to
kind of quantify what that risk is and
then deal with it ahead of time with as
much foresight as possible um rather
than after the fact um which you know
with technologies this powerful and this
transformative um could be extremely risky.
risky. [Music]
[Music]
It seems like whatever the answer to
that question, the impact on society is
going to be transformative to the level
that we haven't seen in our uh you know
lives. Yeah. You're a dad. Yeah. How are
you thinking as a parent about how to
bring a child up in in a world where so
much is likely going to radically
change? Well, I think we've seen a lot
of change even in our lifetimes. um from
you know if I think back to my childhood
where it was the dawn of the computer
age and I was working on you know my
first ZX Spectrum that I got when I was
a small kid and started programming and
then to where we are today even my early
games industry work when I was doing AI
for games like theme park and then today
we've got systems like VO that creating
entire realistic video um you it would
have been hard to dream about that you
know 20 30 years ago and yet we cope
with it we seem to adapt and um and I
think Human beings are sort of inf
infinitely adaptable. I think that's a
good thing about us. We we sort of
normalize to whatever is going on today
with our technology today, smartphones
and computers and internet all around us
and we treat it as you know kids these
days just as second nature. And I
suspect that's what's going to happen
with this. What I'd recommend though is
just like we did in the computer age is
you got to embrace and and and I think
the the coming change, learn about the
tools and learn how to work effectively
uh and make the best use of them. And I
think you'll end up sort of being
superpowered in some way uh both
creatively and productivity wise um if
you use them in the right way. And I
think that's probably the the next stage
that we're going to go through.
um probably the kids these days that are
growing up with these tools um they'll
learn all sorts of new workflows that um
probably will be a lot more efficient um
than we can imagine today. Is there
anything that you do differently as a
parent that you might not have done if
AGI weren't on the horizon? No, I still
think it's I get asked this question a
lot. For example, is it worth learning
programming and mathematics and even
things like chess to train your own
mind? I think it is because um although
for example let's take programming the
nature of programming is changing and it
may well change very radically in the
next few years and actually in some ways
democratize it because we'll start
programming with natural language
instead of with programming languages.
So then the the the the the kind of
value part of that starts going towards
more the creatives and the designers. So
it's going to be pretty interesting
time. Um, but I think the people that
will get the most out of that will still
be the ones with deep technical
understanding of what these tools are
doing, how they were made, and therefore
what are their limitations, and and what
are the things they're strong at that
you can um uh that you can use. What
keeps you up at
night? For me, it's um this question of
international uh standards and
cooperation and and and also not just
between countries but also between
companies as we get and researchers as
we get um to towards the final steps of
um uh AGI and and I think we're on the
cusp of that. You know, maybe we're 5 to
10 years out. Some people say shorter. I
wouldn't be surprised. It's a you know,
sort of like a probability distribution,
but it's coming. So either way, it's
coming very soon. And u I'm not sure
society's quite ready for that yet. And
uh and we need to think that through and
also think about uh these issues that I
talked about earlier with to do with the
u controllability of these systems and
also the access to these systems and
ensuring that that all goes well. So
there's a lot of challenges ahead and a
lot of research and a lot of um uh uh
discussions that need to be had. What
TV, movies, books do you think AI uh get
AI right and why? So, my favorite uh
movies um on the on the on to show how
useful AI could be. Um I really like the
robots from Interstellar. Um extremely
helpful, extremely knowledgeable uh and
in the end self-sacrificing and um I
think that's a good example also have a
lot of humor of of um uh you know how
robot assistants or helpers could be um
very useful in the world. Um and then
maybe on the on the darker side but also
inspired me when I was young was
Bladeunner and things like that where
you know interesting questions about um
uh uh autonomous systems are they
conscious and that was the whole
dilemma. I think it was a philosophical
piece in some sense with Bladeunner uh
and and it's very interesting about the
nature of being human. I mean that's a
question that's coming up a little bit
more and more now right? Are these
systems on the verge of consciousness?
Yeah, my feeling is they're not at all
currently. Um and my recommendation
would be if we have the choice and we if
we understood what consciousness was, we
should build systems first that are not
definitely not conscious and a kind of
tools and then we can use those tools to
better understand our own minds and
maybe what this phenomena is of
consciousness that we all feel and then
once we understood that um which one of
the things I want to use AI for in the
sciences is to advance neuroscience um
then maybe we could take you know think
about taking that next step. Nice. Um,
final question. You have a an
opportunity to have a dream dinner
party. You can invite anybody alive or
dead. Uh, say say four guests. Who would
you choose? Oh, wow. That's really hard
to to to narrow it down to. Um, you have
six if you want. Yeah. I mean, I think
some I would probably invite many of my
scientific heroes. So, for sure Alan
Turing, um, uh, Richard Fineman, um,
and, uh, maybe Newton and Aristotle.
What do you reckon the the conversation
over there? Well, I'm pretty sure with
that set of people, it'll be very
philosophical around maybe these
questions about what are the limitations
of these AI systems and and and what
does it tell us about the nature of
reality and then uh you know, I think
that it does tell us a lot about uh uh
and will do tell us a lot about what
what's going on in the universe around
us. I think AI is going to be the
ultimate tool for science and certainly
that's what um has always been my
passion and what I plan to use it for.
I think actually one more question while
we have you on video. Um it's quite
clear you see yourself as a a scientist
first and foremost. What would you say
are do you see yourself more as a
scientist, a technologist? You're far
away from Silicon Valley in London. I
mean how do you identify? Yeah, I I I
identify myself as a scientist first and
foremost. Um the whole reason I'm doing
uh everything I've done in my life is in
the pursuit of knowledge and and and
trying to understand the world around
us. I've I've I've kind of been obsessed
with that I think since I was a kid of
all the big questions and and for me
building AI is my expression of how to
address those questions is to first
build a tool um that in itself is pretty
fascinating and is a statement about
intelligence and consciousness and these
things that are already some of the
biggest mysteries and then uh it could
it's dual purpose because it can also be
used as a tool to investigate the
natural world around you as well like
chemistry and physics so and biology. So
what uh what more exciting adventure and
and pursuit could you have? So I see
myself as a scientist first and then
maybe like an entrepreneur second mostly
because that's the fastest way to do
things. Uh and then finally maybe a
technologist engineer because in the end
you don't want to just theorize and
think about things in a lab. You
actually want to make a practical
difference in the world. I think that's
where the engineering uh part of me
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