‘AI matching human abilities could arrive in'…says Google DeepMind CEO

Artificial intelligence is getting smarter every day, but are we anywhere close to building machines as intelligent as humans? According to Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, the answer is not yet—but we’re getting there, a report by CNBC reveals.

Hassabis shared his thoughts on the future of AI and the long-debated concept of artificial general intelligence (AGI). That’s the kind of AI that can think, learn, and perform any task as well as (or better than) a human. And while it’s not here yet, he believes it’s just a matter of time.

“I think today’s systems, they’re very passive,” he explained. “There’s still a lot of things they can’t do. But I think over the next five to 10 years, a lot of those capabilities will start coming to the fore and we’ll start moving towards what we call artificial general intelligence.”

In simple terms, AGI is an AI that doesn’t just excel at specific tasks like writing essays or playing chess but can do anything a human can do—problem-solving, reasoning, creativity, even adapting to new environments. Hassabis admits we’re not quite there yet. “These systems are very impressive at certain things. But there are other things they can’t do yet, and we’ve still got quite a lot of research work to go before that.”