“Humanity must prepare for a ‘new era'”. What does the head of Google DeepMind think about the next generation of AI?

“Humanity must prepare for a ‘new era'”. What does the head of Google DeepMind think about the next generation of AI?

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said that the emergence of artificial general intelligence (AGI) could occur as early as 2030.

This was reported by Business Insider.

In his view, this technology will be so impactful that it will effectively open a new era for humanity.

Predictions on AGI timelines

Speaking at Stanford University, Hassabis said AGI — capable of performing cognitive tasks at or above human level — could appear within the next several years.

He estimated it could happen in 2030, with a margin of error of about one year.

Hassabis noted that the emergence of AGI would be a transformational event for society. He compared it to the singularity — the moment after which technological progress changes the normal course of events and a return to the previous state becomes impossible.

Opportunities and warnings

The head of Google DeepMind also said society needs to start preparing now for the next stage of AI development. 

At the same time, Hassabis noted that some industry figures are making overly categorical predictions about the future of artificial intelligence.

Nevertheless, he believes AGI could enable breakthroughs in medicine and large-scale economic changes, and could pave the way to a so-called world without scarcity.

Recall that on June 4 the European Commission unveiled a package of initiatives for technological sovereignty. It is intended to strengthen the position of European companies in cloud services, artificial intelligence and semiconductors.

The initiative aims to help European companies become more competitive on the global market and reduce dependence on foreign suppliers of critical digital infrastructure.

Read also: Google presented Gemma 4 12B — a multimodal AI model for running on laptops