Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, explained why he believes the singularity, a major turning point in AI, is near.
In an interview with Axios co-founder Mike Allen at Google’s flagship I/O developer conference on Wednesday, Hassabis said the singularity is nearing with the rise of powerful AI agents building things for people. Singularity refers to the hypothetical point at which AI surpasses human intelligence and begins to improve itself.
As an example, Hassabis said he uses AI to build mini video games late at night. This is a task that would have taken months in the past.
“I think you can start feeling it now because of the agent system that we’ve all seen and used this year,” he said.
Hassabis added that he believes artificial general intelligence (AGI), where machines have roughly the same intelligence as humans, could emerge as early as 2030.
Hassabis said the impact of AI is still being underestimated and asserted that the impact of AI will be 100 times that of the industrial revolution.
The head of DeepMind, unlike some in Silicon Valley, doesn’t believe machines will take over the world. He said that although AI has some risks, humanity will leverage this technology to solve many problems, especially in the scientific and medical fields.
“I call myself a cautious optimist,” he said.
Hassabis also mentioned the singularity at Tuesday’s I/O conference.
“When we look back at this time, we realize that we were standing at the foot of a singularity,” Hassabis said, drawing gasps from the audience.