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Demis Hassabis

CEO · Google DeepMind

Claims
48
Episodes
2
Shows
2
Named items
1

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book / likes

The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution

“I love that area of biology. There’s people, there’s a great book by Nick Lane, one of the top experts in this area called The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution.”

Lex Fridman Podcast · 23 Jul 2025

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Claim ledger

What Demis said.

28 transcript-backed records

02 / belief

We have systems I think that can do incremental hill climbing, and that’s a kind of bigger question about is that all that’s needed from here, or do we actually need one or two more big breakthroughs.

“We have systems I think that can do incremental hill climbing, and that’s a kind of bigger question about is that all that’s needed from here, or do we actually need one or two more big breakthroughs.”
Speaker
Demis Hassabis
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

03 / belief

I think compute, there’s the amount of compute you have for training, often it needs to be co-located, so actually even bandwidth constraints between data centers can affect that. So there’s additional constraints even there and that’s important for training, obviously the largest models you can, but there’s also because now AI systems are in products and being used by billions of people around the world, you need a ton of inference compute now.

“I think compute, there’s the amount of compute you have for training, often it needs to be co-located, so actually even bandwidth constraints between data centers can affect that. So there’s additional constraints even there and that’s important for training, obviously the largest models you can, but there’s also because now AI systems are in products and being used by billions of people around the world, you need a ton of inference compute now.”
Speaker
Demis Hassabis
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

06 / belief

I think to the extent that it can predict the next frames in a coherent way, that is a form of understanding, not in the anthropomorphic version of, it’s not some kind of deep philosophical understanding of what’s going on, I don’t think these systems have that, but they certainly have modeled enough of the dynamics, put it that way, that they can pretty accurately generate whatever it is, eight seconds of consistent video that by eye, at least at a glance, is quite hard to distinguish what the issues are.

“I think to the extent that it can predict the next frames in a coherent way, that is a form of understanding, not in the anthropomorphic version of, it’s not some kind of deep philosophical understanding of what’s going on, I don’t think these systems have that, but they certainly have modeled enough of the dynamics, put it that way, that they can pretty accurately generate whatever it is, eight seconds of consistent video that by eye, at least at a glance, is quite hard to distinguish what the issues are.”
Speaker
Demis Hassabis
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

07 / belief

New types of solar material, solar panel material room temperature superconductors has always been on my list of dream breakthroughs, and optimal batteries. And I think a solution to any one of those things would be absolutely revolutionary for climate and energy usage.

“New types of solar material, solar panel material room temperature superconductors has always been on my list of dream breakthroughs, and optimal batteries. And I think a solution to any one of those things would be absolutely revolutionary for climate and energy usage.”
Speaker
Demis Hassabis
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

09 / belief

Then maybe he got inspired by what AlphaGo was doing to then conjure this incredible inspirational moment, captured very well in the documentary about it. And I think that’ll continue in many domains where there’s this, at least again for the foreseeable future, of the humans bringing in their ingenuity and asking the right question, let’s say, and then utilizing these tools in a way that then cracks a problem.

“Then maybe he got inspired by what AlphaGo was doing to then conjure this incredible inspirational moment, captured very well in the documentary about it. And I think that’ll continue in many domains where there’s this, at least again for the foreseeable future, of the humans bringing in their ingenuity and asking the right question, let’s say, and then utilizing these tools in a way that then cracks a problem.”
Speaker
Demis Hassabis
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

10 / belief

Actually, I think we’re going to enter an era of AI-generated interfaces that are probably personalized to you, so it fits the way that you, your aesthetic, your feel, the way that your brain works and the AI kind of generates that depending on the task.

“Actually, I think we’re going to enter an era of AI-generated interfaces that are probably personalized to you, so it fits the way that you, your aesthetic, your feel, the way that your brain works and the AI kind of generates that depending on the task.”
Speaker
Demis Hassabis
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

11 / belief

I agree and I would love to see a lot of people, all of the other labs talk about science, but I think we’re really the only ones using it for science and doing that.

“I agree and I would love to see a lot of people, all of the other labs talk about science, but I think we’re really the only ones using it for science and doing that.”
Speaker
Demis Hassabis
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

13 / belief

Obviously, society is adding more data all the time to the Internet and things like that. I think that there’s a lot of scope for creating synthetic data.

“Obviously, society is adding more data all the time to the Internet and things like that. I think that there’s a lot of scope for creating synthetic data.”
Speaker
Demis Hassabis
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

14 / belief

Perhaps chaining thought, lines of reasoning, together and using search to explore massive spaces of possibility. I think that’s kind of missing from our current large models.

“Perhaps chaining thought, lines of reasoning, together and using search to explore massive spaces of possibility. I think that’s kind of missing from our current large models.”
Speaker
Demis Hassabis
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

18 / belief

In my view, the only sensible approach when you have huge uncertainty is to be cautiously optimistic and use the scientific method to try and have as much foresight and understanding about what’s coming down the line and the consequences of that before it happens.

“In my view, the only sensible approach when you have huge uncertainty is to be cautiously optimistic and use the scientific method to try and have as much foresight and understanding about what’s coming down the line and the consequences of that before it happens.”
Speaker
Demis Hassabis
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

19 / belief

I think the next versions of this over the next year, 18 months, we’ll maybe have some contextual understanding of the environment around you through a camera or a phone or some glasses.

“I think the next versions of this over the next year, 18 months, we’ll maybe have some contextual understanding of the environment around you through a camera or a phone or some glasses.”
Speaker
Demis Hassabis
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

22 / belief

Actually my thesis, and that paper particularly that started that area of imagination in neuroscience, was showing that first of all memory, at least human memory, is a reconstructive process.

“Actually my thesis, and that paper particularly that started that area of imagination in neuroscience, was showing that first of all memory, at least human memory, is a reconstructive process.”
Speaker
Demis Hassabis
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

23 / belief

I think we’re getting to the stage where our systems could help the best human scientists make their breakthroughs quicker, almost triage the search space in some ways.

“I think we’re getting to the stage where our systems could help the best human scientists make their breakthroughs quicker, almost triage the search space in some ways.”
Speaker
Demis Hassabis
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

24 / belief

We have those implicitly internally in various safety councils that people like Shane chair and so on. But it’s time for us to talk about that more publicly I think.

“We have those implicitly internally in various safety councils that people like Shane chair and so on. But it’s time for us to talk about that more publicly I think.”
Speaker
Demis Hassabis
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

25 / belief

I’m hoping we’re going to see a lot more of this kind of transfer, but I think things like getting better at coding and math, and then generally improving your reasoning.

“I’m hoping we’re going to see a lot more of this kind of transfer, but I think things like getting better at coding and math, and then generally improving your reasoning.”
Speaker
Demis Hassabis
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

27 / belief

I think if a capability like that was discovered through red teaming or external testing, independent testers like government institutes or academia or whatever, then we would have to fix that loophole.

“I think if a capability like that was discovered through red teaming or external testing, independent testers like government institutes or academia or whatever, then we would have to fix that loophole.”
Speaker
Demis Hassabis
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

28 / belief

If ChatGPT and chatbots hadn’t gotten the interest they ended up getting—which I think was quite surprising to everyone that people were ready to use these things even though they were lacking in certain directions, impressive though they are—then we would have produced more specialized systems built off of the main track, like AlphaFold and AlphaGo, our scientific work.

“If ChatGPT and chatbots hadn’t gotten the interest they ended up getting—which I think was quite surprising to everyone that people were ready to use these things even though they were lacking in certain directions, impressive though they are—then we would have produced more specialized systems built off of the main track, like AlphaFold and AlphaGo, our scientific work.”
Speaker
Demis Hassabis
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast
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