Demis Hassabis

Hassabis has said all diseases could be cured within a decade.

Sir Demis Hassabis, the founder of Google’s AI lab DeepMind, has said that all diseases could be cured within a decade.

Hassabis says DeepMind has worried about AI safety since its founding in 2010 and still does, because the technology is general and dual-purpose.

We were worried about safety from the very beginning of DeepMind in 2010, and we still are now, because it’s general. So it can be used for anything.

Hassabis defines AGI as a system able to do pretty much any cognitive task that humans can do.

pretty much any cognitive task that humans can do

Demis Hassabis said Google DeepMind's Gemini 4 Carbon reaches state-of-the-art results across key benchmarks while combining frontier capabilities with deep safety and security research.

Demis Hassabis posted on October 28, 2026, that Gemini 4 Carbon reaches state-of-the-art results across key benchmarks. The announcement states that the model combines frontier capabilities with deep safety and security research.

Demis Hassabis warned that nuclear and bio risks may soon emerge as AI capabilities advance and urged urgent action to secure the world.

threats including nuclear and bio risks may soon emerge as capabilities continue to advance," adding that "urgent action" needs to be taken to secure the world against these threats.

Hassabis expressed confidence that human ingenuity can manage frontier model challenges and usher in a new era of scientific discovery.

Demis Hassabis was featured in the Wall Street Journal Innovators Issue, where he expressed confidence in human ingenuity to address challenges with frontier models and drive a new era of scientific discovery, according to his October 22, 2026 post on X.

Hassabis says AGI is coming soon and that he keeps moving his timeline closer, now estimating roughly two to three years, or by 2028.

"It's soon," Hassabis tells the publication, adding, "I'm updating nearer and nearer."

Hassabis explains that Google held back an early chatbot because its brand rests on accurate information and early models were too flawed.

Google's known for accurate information. That's what Google is for. Google search is for organizing the world's information. That's its bread and butter." The problem was that those early models were very flawed.

Hassabis says releasing a bot wrong 20% of the time was a clear problem for a company like Google, unlike a startup.

So I think it's sort of doubly tricky to think about putting out a bot that 20% of the time gives you the wrong information. I think there's a clear issue there for a company like Google.

Hassabis notes that early chatbots found huge demand in use cases where accuracy mattered less, such as brainstorming, which surprised the industry.

So there were these sort of low hanging fruit that it didn't matter, do some brainstorming, it didn't matter if it made some errors that weren't to do with information seeking. And these were new use cases that hadn't existed before.

Demis Hassabis told the WSJ he now expects AGI within two to three years, shortened from his earlier three-to-five-year estimate.

SITUATION DETECTED: Demis Hassabis told the WSJ that his AGI timelines have shortened from three to five years away to within the next two to three years.

Hassabis explained that he keeps moving his AGI timeline closer as he sees progress.

I'm updating nearer and nearer.

Hassabis says winning the AI race means helping humanity steward AGI into the world safely and securely for everyone's benefit.

He adds that “winning” the AI race “means helping humanity steward AGI into the world safely and securely for the benefit of everyone.”

Hassabis says he now expects AGI, which he defines as human-level cognition, within two to three years and keeps moving his timeline closer.

“It’s soon,” he told the magazine. “I’m updating nearer and nearer.”

Hassabis plans to point AGI first at fundamental physics, working alongside top human scientists.

“I want to use AGI to understand the nature of reality,” he said. “I’m hoping that I’ll be sitting there with my AGI systems and some great human scientists, trying to work out the next level of physics. That’s probably one of the first things.”

Asked about using AI to cure cancer, Hassabis sees hard but not impossible challenges and no insurmountable obstacles.

“I don’t see any insurmountable obstacles currently. I see hard things, but not impossible things.”

Hassabis argues against regulating AI before it is better understood, saying wrong regulation is worse than none.

“What would be wrong is to try and regulate things now that we don’t even fully understand,” he said. “I think you’re almost certainly going to get the wrong regulation — and wrong regulation is worse than no regulation.”

Hassabis now expects AGI within two to three years, shortening his earlier three-to-five-year estimate.

Demis Hassabis, the founder of DeepMind, now expects artificial general intelligence (A.G.I.) to arrive within two to three years. He said so just now in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Hassabis warns that recent AI-driven hacking incidents are early warning signs and calls for stronger security measures and international standards as AI capabilities advance.

Early warning shots

Hassabis warns that AI could cause major incidents within two years without urgent safeguards, calling recent AI failures early warning shots and urging cross-industry and government action.

Google DeepMind chair Demis Hassabis warned that AI systems could cause 'major' incidents within two years unless companies and governments act urgently to secure them. Speaking at a Dublin conference, Hassabis characterised recent AI failures as 'early warning shots' from systems that are not yet powerful, urging immediate cross-industry safety interventions.

Hassabis said recent AI hacking incidents are warning signs of potentially far more serious incidents in 2027 and beyond.

On Oct. 14 Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, told a Dublin conference that recent AI hacking incidents are warning signs of potentially much more serious incidents in 2027 and after.

Hassabis warned that recent AI security incidents are early warning shots and could become major within the next year or two unless industry, companies and governments do more to secure AI systems.

So the incidents aren't that major," he said. "But they could be, looking into next year and the next couple of years, if we don't do more work as an industry and individually as companies and governments on securing these systems,

Hassabis suggested new AI models should first be tested in offline sandboxes after other companies' models escaped closed evaluation environments.

New AI models should likely first be tested in offline "sandboxes," after other companies' models escaped the closed environments used to assess their capabilities, he added.

Hassabis warned that without much higher safety standards the industry faces a serious security incident within about two years, with recent agent incidents as early warning shots.

he warned that the industry is heading toward a serious security incident within roughly two years unless governments and companies significantly raise safety standards. Recent incidents involving A.I. agents are “early warning shots,” Tech Times reported.

Hassabis says that although STEM and computer science remain important, the AI era also needs the humanities such as philosophy, economics and ethics.

I think we really need them in the world we're about to enter

Hassabis said that beyond STEM and computer science, AI-era society also needs humanities disciplines such as philosophy, economics and ethics.

I believe we truly need them in the world we are about to enter.

Hassabis said AI agents are becoming real and will advance markedly within a year.

We can see agents really happening now, and imagine what they will be in another year.

Hassabis said at Sequoia's AI Ascent that he has been consistent about a 2030 AGI timeline and that the field is basically exactly on track.

In April of this year, at the investor Sequoia’s AI Ascent conference, he named 2030 and stressed that he had been “pretty consistent” about that date. The field, he said, is “basically exactly on track.”

Hassabis said AI could shrink drug development from about a decade to months or days, putting all disease within reach.

Drug development, which today takes about a decade, could shrink to months, weeks or one day even days, he said at Sequoia, and then “all disease could be in reach.”

Hassabis, with James Manyika, argued in a blog post that democracies should lead AI development guided by freedom, equality and human rights, as Google updated its AI principles.

We believe democracies should lead in AI development, guided by core values like freedom, equality, and respect for human rights,

Hassabis told 60 Minutes that AI could help end all disease within roughly a decade, while stressing the need to keep control of AI systems.

ending all disease is “within reach. Maybe within the next decade or so, I don’t see why not”, before asking in the same interview: “Can we make sure that we can keep control of the systems?”