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    Google DeepMind CEO on What Keeps Him Up At Night: "AGI is Coming, Society's Not Ready"
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    Google DeepMind CEO on What Keeps Him Up At Night: “AGI is Coming, Society’s Not Ready”

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    33 Comments

    1. MetaKnowing on

      “Mr Hassabis was quizzed about what keeps him up at night, to which he talked about AGI, which was in the final steps of becoming reality.

      The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner said AI systems capable of human-level cognitive abilities were only five to ten years away.

      “For me, it’s this question of international standards and cooperation and also not just between countries, but also between companies and researchers as we get towards the final steps of AGI. And I think we are on the cusp of that. Maybe we are five to 10 years out. Some people say shorter, I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Mr Hassabis.

      “It’s a sort of like probability distribution. But it’s coming, either way it’s coming very soon and I’m not sure society’s quite ready for that yet. And we need to think that through and also think about these issues that I talked about earlier, to do with the controllability of these systems and also the access to these systems and ensuring that all goes well,” he added.

      This is not the first instance when Mr Hassabis has warned about the perils of AGI. He has previously batted for a UN-like umbrella organisation to oversee AGI’s development.

      “I would advocate for a kind of CERN for AGI, and by that, I mean a kind of international research focused high-end collaboration on the frontiers of AGI development to try and make that as safe as possible,” said Mr Hassabis in February.

      “You would also have to pair it with a kind of an institute like IAEA, to monitor unsafe projects and sort of deal with those. And finally, some kind of supervening body that involves many countries around the world. So a kind of like UN umbrella, something that is fit for purpose for that, a technical UN,” he added.

      The assessment by the Google executive comes in the backdrop of DeepMind publishing a [research paper](https://blog.google/technology/google-deepmind/agi-safety-paper/) earlier this month, warning that AGI may “permanently destroy humanity”.

    2. dbbk on

      It’s not though, is it. Everyone knows at this point LLMs are incapable of reaching AGI. So what is it gonna be?

    3. SnowConePeople on

      As a millennial I’m so prepared. So damn prepared. I’m callused, hardened, I don’t even react to things I can’t control. I’m a rock on this planet that’s been stepped on, shit on, kicked, thrown, crumbled and I’m still here.

    4. phoenix14830 on

      We will reach a point very quickly that there simply won’t be enough jobs, and that will only get worse.

    5. frickin_420 on

      The Deepmind research paper the article references is long but very good. There are some interesting parts to skip around to.

      [https://storage.googleapis.com/deepmind-media/DeepMind.com/Blog/evaluating-potential-cybersecurity-threats-of-advanced-ai/An_Approach_to_Technical_AGI_Safety_Apr_2025.pdf](https://storage.googleapis.com/deepmind-media/DeepMind.com/Blog/evaluating-potential-cybersecurity-threats-of-advanced-ai/An_Approach_to_Technical_AGI_Safety_Apr_2025.pdf)

    6. WateredDown on

      “Man with a vested financial interest in making the narrative around genAI as hyperbolic as possible makes hyperbolic and inflammatory statement”

      They know what they’re doing. People think all AI is the same and language models are actuality thinking to produce language. The scarier AI is the more impressive it is the more thier product seems like it’s the answer to everything. Of course AGI can be scary, but notice his reasonable suggestions about ethics commities and international law and cooperation don’t quite live up to the “Humanity will be destroyed” byline.

    7. BrillsonHawk on

      I’ll believe it when I see it. Nothing i’ve seen so far suggests we are even remotely close

    8. scriminal on

      everyone ignores the part where we could just not do that. they treat as a foregone conclusion that every corporation will rip out all employees and replace them with AI and tank the economy for everyone but the .01%. How about just make that illegal or create a tax scheme where the money is redistributed. we don’t HAVE to let corporations ruin the planet.

    9. Yasirbare on

      The inner journey and mushrooms are coming the industry are not ready.- we only demand food and room for creativity keep your fallos dreams. 

    10. KilowogTrout on

      Nice article to build hype for something that doesn’t exist! This will definitely help him raise money!

    11. Napoleon7 on

      “AGI is Coming, Society’s Not Ready”… **Then stop it you fool**

    13. pneapplefruitdude on

      Society is not ready for it? Yeah no shit, we havent even arrived at printers that work out of the box.

    14. mapppo on

      so many people worry about their jobs or something about chatgpt hallucinations, blah blah blah, (i know better than the deepmind guy too). meanwhile im wondering if AGI will be capitalism+ or an intellectual rennaisance. really i am bored waiting for the singularity more than anything.

    15. BootPloog on

      Well no shit.

      Science fiction novels, film and television have been trying to initiate this discussion for *decades*.

      Time to listen to us nerds on this topic. I have two degrees in sociology and it’s unnerving to watch the paradigm shift occur in real time.

      😬

    16. KAKYBAC on

      A true AGI would just be silent. It would ascend beyond the folly of dealing with humans.

    17. YahYahY on

      Here’s the issue: at least when the A bomb was created, they had the excuse that it might save lives in the bloodiest war in history.

      There is NO such urgency for AI and AGI to be created. We literally *don’t* need it, especially because our society is *not* set up to ensure safety and economic security for all or even a majority of our people. All AGI is going to do is ruin lives, put people out of work with no safety net, and make the elite rich even more wealthy. Anyone who thinks AGI is going to significantly make their lives better is either part of a privileged class and financially well off, or incredibly naive.

      And all these people creating these AI tools come out with statements one after another basically admitting that they are fully aware of this.

      So *why* are we full steam ahead creating something that will essentially ensure societal harm? Without a good excuse like a major World War we need to prevent.

    18. dotsona07 on

      If AGI is so great then the prices of all goods should go down dramatically and require us all to work less?

    19. tsereg on

      Well, then, stop developing it and sleep better!

      Of course they won’t, and of course he believes nothing so dramatic. For the last 15 years, since they started developing self-driving cars, they have followed the same marketing playbook: it’s already there, next year this time…

      All sociopaths, and we have whole generations living in fear and psychosis, expecting the end of the world as a consequence. This fearmongering should be punishable by law.

    20. RedHeadedSicilian52 on

      Arsonist on What Keeps Him Up At Night: “A Fire is Coming, Community’s Not Ready”

    21. muderphudder on

      Can everyone stop posting articles that are just CEOs and VCs talking up their book?

      Edit: it’s been brought to my attention that not everyone is familiar with the idea of talking one’s own book. It’s not about him talking about a literal book he wrote. It’s the tendency for business leaders and investors to make headlines that indirectly juice their own investments or companies.

    23. aircooledJenkins on

      AGI = Artificial General Intelligence

      I didn’t know so I looked it up and made this comment to help others that might not know.

    24. zachem62 on

      According to virtually every unbiased AI scientist worth their salt, AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is a pipe dream. These tech bros are just trying to frame the public narrative to make it seem like they’re at the brink of alien level technology, simply to attract gullible investors and scare regulators away. This is pure hype and grifting for the sake of money and power.

    25. Sufficient_Ladder965 on

      Every year they say that AGI will come soon. This is the fifth year they have been saying that AGI will come in 5 years.

      The reality is that there are no indications that AGI will ever exist at all, and statements like this is nothing more than attracting investors.

    26. Canadian_Border_Czar on

      No. Not it’s not. This is more marketing stock price bullshit.

      LLMs are not AI, they never were. The industry hijacked a word that was really popular but was reserved for a specific technology. LLMs do not have unique or independent thought. 

      Everything is taught, everything is plagiarized. You can feed it garbage information and it will never independently determine that information was garbage. 

      Its machine learning paired with an insane amount of processing power. 

    27. cr1ter on

      Once we reach AGI it won’t be long before we reach singularity at that point it won’t matter anymore what society is ready for

    28. Sea_Dawgz on

      Society isn’t ready for a few billionaires to have everything while most high paying average jobs go away and 95% of us end up with nothing?

      No way!

    29. xeonicus on

      AI won’t destroy humanity. The greedy billionaires that own AI will destroy humanity when they cause society to collapse. AI isn’t the problem. The problem is unrestrained capitalism and political inaction.

      I don’t envision a future utopia with AI doing all the work, UBI provided for everyone, and all our needs provided for. I envision a future where a handful of individuals control everything and an underclass struggles to survive on scraps. And then the billionaires realize they had no foresight and there are no consumers left.

    30. MommaLlamaYamaObama on

      Torment Nexus LLC CEO on What Keeps Him Up At Night: “The Torment Nexus is coming, Society’s Not Ready”

      Is exactly how that headline reads lmao Why say performative bullshit like this when AGI is exactly what you’re trying to achieve?

    31. Ochinchindaisukedesu on

      And it’s people like him that are actively trying to make society not ready. We need social safety nets such as UBI to make sure people can provide for themselves in the face of mass automation. 

    32. SuperRonnie2 on

      Meh. Anytime I read about AI, I usually just assume it’s more hype to keep share prices higher.

    33. fauxRealzy on

      Oh wow a tech CEO with a book to sell is concerned about AI. What a fresh and original take.