General artificial intelligence (AGI) may be possible within a few years, Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google’s artificial intelligence subsidiary DeepMind, said Tuesday, referring to a system in which computers have human-level cognitive abilities.
As for the timing of AGI’s realization, Demis Hassabis said in an interview Tuesday that the pace of AI research will likely accelerate further from its already rapid pace. “The progress over the last few years has been pretty incredible,” Demis Hassabis said, “and I don’t see any reason why it would slow down the process. I think it might even accelerate. So I think we’re probably only a few years away, maybe in a decade.”
He added that researchers have not yet agreed on a suitable definition of AGI. “I think we’re going to have very powerful, very general systems in the next few years,” Demis Hassabis stated. He was named CEO of DeepMind by Google just last month to lead Google’s two newly merged AI research divisions. Google says the move will accelerate its AI progress.
The development of AGI is currently a hot-button issue in the AI research community. While some observers have described it as a science fiction concept, Demis Hassabis and other executives such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have publicly stated their ambition to develop the technology while protecting humanity from its consequences.
Demis Hassabis also stressed the importance of developing AGI responsibly. He said the development of AI technology will require close coordination between researchers, academia and government. At the same time, he added that he sees Google as a responsible player. “I advocate using a scientific approach to develop these types of AGI technologies in a careful way. You need to try to do very carefully controlled experiments to understand the function of the underlying system.” He said.
