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Google DeepMind CEO and Nobel laureate Demis Hassabis said that starting 2030 humans will be able to colonise the galaxy and artificial intelligence will power this revolution.
Demis Hassabis attends the TIME100 gala, celebrating the magazine’s annual list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World, in New York City, US. (IMAGE: REUTERS)
2024 Nobel Prize winner and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis told a news outlet recently that humans will be able to “colonise the galaxy” starting 2030 and the revolution will be powered by artificial intelligence (AI). The Nobel chemistry laureate told WIRED that AI will lead humanity to far into the universe while turbocharging human productivity.
Hassabis, who was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize with David Baker “for computational protein design”, said the ‘golden era’ was only five years away and that AI models set to bring about a renaissance in human existence.
“If everything goes well, then we should be in an era of radical abundance, a kind of golden era. AGI can solve what I call root-node problems in the world, curing terrible diseases, much healthier and longer lifespans, finding new energy sources,” Hassabis was quoted as saying in an interview with WIRED.
AGI, or Artificial General Intelligence, refers to an AI system with human-like cognitive abilities, capable of understanding, learning, and applying knowledge across a wide range of tasks.
“If that all happens, then it should be an era of maximum human flourishing, where we travel to the stars and colonise the galaxy. I think that will begin to happen in 2030,” he said.
When asked whether abundance through AI would still result in unequal distribution, Demis Hassabis said the technology could make the world feel “like a non-zero-sum game.”
Although AGI has the potential to open vast new frontiers for humanity, Hassabis has previously expressed concern that society may not be prepared for its impact and admitted that the risks and consequences of such powerful technology often keep him up at night.
“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 said.
He has also advocated for creating a UN-style global body to oversee the development and governance of AGI.
“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,” he further added.
Shankhyaneel Sarkar is a senior subeditor at News18. He covers international affairs, where he focuses on breaking news to in-depth analyses. He has over five years of experience during which he has covered sev…Read More
Shankhyaneel Sarkar is a senior subeditor at News18. He covers international affairs, where he focuses on breaking news to in-depth analyses. He has over five years of experience during which he has covered sev… Read More
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