The Ledger
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Hassabis Predicts True AGI Is Five To Ten Years Away
“I think an AGI system would have to be able to do all of those things to really fulfill the original sort of goal of the AI field. And I think, you know, we're five to 10 years away from that.”
Demis Hassabis Rejects Yann LeCun's Stance That LLMs Are A Dead End
“No matter what camp you're in, we're gonna need Large foundation models as the key component of the final AGI systems. Of that, I'm sure. So, I don't, I'm not subscriber to someone like Jan LeCun who thinks, you know, that there's sort of some kind of dead end…”
Hassabis: AGI Must Mean Matching All Human Cognitive Capabilities
“I don't think AGI should be sort of turned into a marketing term or for commercial gain. I think there is always been a scientific definition of that. My definition of that is a system that that can exhibit all the cognitive capabilities humans can. And I mean…”
Demis Hassabis predicts AGI is three to five years away
“I think you know, I would say probably like three to five years away.”
Demis Hassabis expects Google spinout Isomorphic Labs to cure all diseases
“One is curing all diseases one day. Which I think we're going to do with isomorphic and the work we're doing there or our spin out, our drug discovery spin out.”
Hassabis: AI Has Significant Headroom Using Existing Architectures and Data
“Actually it turns out you can wring more more juice out of the existing Architectures and data. So there's plenty of room, I think, and we're still seeing that in both the pre-training, the post-training, and the thinking paradigms, and also the way that they …”
Hassabis: Reaching AGI Will Require One or Two More Fundamental Breakthroughs
“I'm definitely a subscriber to the idea that maybe we need one or two more big breakthroughs before we'll get to AGI, and I think they're along the lines of things like continual learning, better memory, longer context windows, or perhaps more efficient contex…”
Hassabis: General Learning Across Any Domain Is The Defining Feature of AGI
“Learning is a critical part of agenda of AGI. It's actually almost the defining feature. When we say general, we mean general learning. Can it learn new knowledge and can it learn across any domain? That's the general part. So for me, learning is synonymous wi…”
Hassabis: Today's AI systems are nowhere near true human-level invention
“And today's systems, in my opinion, are nowhere near that. Doesn't matter how many, you know, Erdos problems you solve, which for some reason, you know, I mean, you know, that's, it's good that we're doing those things, but I think it's far, far from what you …”
Hassabis: World models are essential for AGI and long-term planning
“And then, of course, that would be, I think, essential for a GI, because that would allow these systems to plan, long-term plan, in the real world over, perhaps, very long time horizons, which, of course, we as humans can do, you know I'll spend four years get…”
Google Has No Current Plans to Introduce Ads to the Gemini App
“From our point of view, we have no plans at the moment to do ads. If you're talking about the Gemini app, right? Specifically”
Hassabis: Anthropic Avoids Multimodal Models to Focus Strictly on Coding
“You know, they don't make image models, multimodal models, world models. They just do, you know, coding and language models, and they're very, very good at that.”
Demis Hassabis: Multi-Billion Dollar AI Seed Rounds Are Unsustainable and "Filthy"
“When you see seed rounds of tens of billions of dollars of companies that basically have no product or research, it's just Some people coming together. That seems a bit unsustainable to me in a normal market, a bit filthy.”
Hassabis: AI automation may be 10x the Industrial Revolution
“I think we've, it's like the industrial revolution, maybe 10 X of that, but we'll have to adapt again, and I think we'll find new meaning in things, and we do a lot of things already today that are not just for economic gain.”
Hassabis: Post-human AGI will discover room-temperature superconductors and new energy sources
“I mean, that's what to me is, it would be the AGI moment is, you know, then it will discover a new superconductor, room temperature superconductor that's possible in the laws of physics, but we just haven't found that needle in the haystack. Or a new source of…”
Hassabis: Reaching AGI may require one or two more new breakthroughs
“And I think to get all the way to something like AGI, I think may require one or two more new breakthroughs.”
Hassabis: AI Capable of True Scientific Invention Is Coming
“You know, that's, I think we don't have systems yet that can do that type of creativity. I think they're coming and these types of paradigms might be helpful in that things like thinking and then probably many other things.”
Hassabis: True AGI Must Match the Entire Capability Range of Human Brain Architecture
“What I would call AGI, is really a more theoretical construct, which is what is the human brain as an architecture able to do, right? And that's, the human brain's an important reference point because it's the only evidence we have maybe in the universe that g…”
Hassabis: AGI Should Take Experts Months to Find Obvious Flaws, Not Minutes
“For something to be called AGI, it would need to be consistent, much more consistent across the board Than it is today. It should take, like, a couple of months for maybe a team of experts to find a hole in it, an obvious hole in it. Whereas, you know, today i…”
Hassabis: Software intelligence, not hardware, has always held robotics back
“I've always felt that the bottleneck in robotics isn't so much the hardware, although obviously there's many, many companies, and working on fantastic hardware, and we partner with a lot of them, But it's actually the software intelligence that I think is alwa…”
Hassabis: Gemini 2.5 and video algorithms will make robotics work
“I think we're in a really exciting moment now where finally with these latest versions, especially 2.5 Gemini and more things that we're going to bring in this kind of video technology and other things. I think we're going to have really exciting algorithms to…”
Demis Hassabis says current AI models lack reasoning and long-term memory
“I think there are still some missing attributes, things like reasoning hierarchical planning long-term memory. There's quite a few capabilities that the current systems I would say don't have.”
Demis Hassabis says AI lacks original scientific hypothesis and creative capability
“And I think today's systems are still pretty far away from having that kind of creative, inventive capability.”
Demis Hassabis says knowledge compression cannot solve novel math without planning
“Just understanding the world's information, and then trying to sort of almost compress that into your memory, that's not enough for solving a novel math problem, or a novel, novel conjecture. So there, you know, we start needing to bring in, I think we talked …”
Demis Hassabis says ambiguity limits self-improving AI outside math and games
“Maths, and even coding, and games, these are areas, they're quite special, ah, ah, areas of knowledge, because you can verify if the answer is correct. Right. In all of those domains, right. The math, you know, the final answer the AI system puts out, you can …”
Demis Hassabis says AI agents require active data over passive observation
“So I think that's the next big step actually for agent based systems is to go beyond world models. Can you collect enough data where the agents are also acting in the world and making plans and achieving tasks? And I think for that you will need Ah, ah, not ju…”
Demis Hassabis confirms AI scaling returns are slowing but remain substantial
“My view is that we are getting substantial returns, but not, but it's slowing vis-a-vis, but it would have to, I mean, it's not just continuing to be exponential, but that doesn't mean the scaling is not working. It's absolutely working.”
Demis Hassabis says scaling base models alone will not produce AGI
“The model itself is not enough To be an AGI. You need this other capability for it to act in the world and solve problems for you.”
Demis Hassabis sees 50 percent chance AGI requires new architectural breakthroughs
“Maybe we need one or two more transformer-like breakthroughs. And I, and I'm, I think I'm genuinely uncertain about that. So that's why I say 50%. So I mean, I wouldn't be surprised either way if we got there with existing techniques and things we already knew…”
Demis Hassabis predicts upcoming AI agents will achieve Move 37-style breakthroughs
“I think the agent based systems that are coming, Will be capable of move-thirty-seven type things.”
Demis Hassabis predicts deceptive AI becomes a major issue by 2028
“I wouldn't get too alarmed about them right now, but I think it shows the type of issue we're going to have to deal with. Maybe in two, three years time when these agent systems become quite powerful and quite general.”
Demis Hassabis predicts AI agents will negotiate directly with service providers
“I think that we're going to end up with probably a kind of, Economics model where agents talk to other agents and negotiate things between themselves and then give you back the results, right? And you will have the service providers with agents as well that ar…”
Demis Hassabis predicts 2025 will be the year of AI agents
“Well, again, you know, I think the hype train can potentially is ahead of where the actual science and research is, but I do believe that this year will be the year of agents. The beginnings of it, I think you'll start seeing that you know lap, maybe second ha…”
Demis Hassabis predicts a virtual cell AI model will take five years
“I think that would be like maybe five years from now. Yeah. So I have a kind of five year project and a lot of the alpha fold, the old alpha fold team are working on that.”
Demis Hassabis predicts AI will eventually discover room-temperature superconductors
“I think well I heard that we actually think there are some superconductor materials. I doubt they're room temperature ones though, but I think at some point, if it's possible with physics an AI system will one day find it.”
Demis Hassabis says Western frontier AI models remain ahead of China
“It's for sure, it's impressive what they've been able to do. And you know, I think that's something we're going to have to think about how to keep the western frontier models in, in the lead. I think they still are at the moment, but you know, for sure China's…”
Hassabis: Continual learning that updates models over time has not been cracked
“But I think to have it you want to do it more than just having your data in the context window. That's you want to have something a bit deeper than that, which is, as you say, actually changes the model over time. That's what ideally you would have. And that t…”
Next-Generation Google and Samsung Smart Glasses Will Appear By Summer 2026
“We've done some great partnerships with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster and Samsung to build these next generation glasses. And you should start seeing that you know, maybe by the summer.”
Hassabis: Almost every future drug discovered will probably use AlphaFold
“I think in future Almost every single drug that's discovered from now on will probably have used AlphaFold at some point in that process, which is, you know, amazing for us, and, you know, really, that's what we do, all the work we do for.”
Hassabis: Test-time compute and inference will require vast data center capacity
“We're going to need a lot of data centers for serving, and also for inference time compute. Giving, you know, you saw DeepThink today, T.P.P. Pro DeepThink. The more time you give it, the better it will be, and certain tasks, very high value, very difficult ta…”
Hassabis: Test-time compute elevated AlphaZero from master level to superhuman
“We had versions of AlphaGo and AlphaZero with the thinking turned off, so it was just the model telling you its first idea. And, you know, it's not bad, it's maybe like master level, something like that, but then if you turn the thinking on, it's way beyond wo…”
Hassabis: AGI Must Understand Emotion but Emulating It May Be Undesirable
“I think it will need to understand emotion. I don't know if I think it will be a sort of almost a design decision if we wanted to mimic emotions. I think there's no, I don't see any reason why it couldn't in theory. But it might be different or we might, it mi…”
Hassabis: Universal assistant is the killer app for smart glasses
“I feel like the universal assistant is the killer app for smart glasses, and I think that's what's going to make it work, apart from the fact that it's all, the tech, the hardware technology has also moved on, and Improved a lot. Is this, I think, I feel like …”
Hassabis: Web will transform into an agent-first architecture within years
“I do think the web, I think in nearer term, the web is going to change quite a lot if you think about an agent first web. Like, does it really need to, you know, it doesn't necessarily need to see renders and things like we do as humans using the web, so I thi…”
Hassabis: Underlying Physics Is Information Theory in a Computational Universe
“I do think that ultimately underlying physics is information theory. So I do think we're in a computational universe, but it's not just a straightforward simulation.”
DeepMind math AI achieves Olympiad silver medals despite making basic errors
“You have systems some systems that we work on, like alpha proof, alpha geometry, that are getting, you know, silver medals in maths olympiads, which is fantastic, but on the other hand, Some of our systems, those same systems are still making some fairly basic…”
Demis Hassabis says minor error rates compound to ruin AI planning
“Even if you only have a one percent error in what the model's telling you, that's going to compound over a hundred steps to the point where you'll be in a, you know, you'll kind of get almost a random answer. And so that makes the planning very difficult.”