Ep 88: Unpacking DeepMind's Quest for SuperIntelligence with Demis Hassabis' Biographer

**Sebastian Mallaby** (0:00)
Demis has a Nobel Prize, Sam didn't finish his first degree. Therefore, Demis doesn't take Sam very seriously.

**Jacob Effron** (0:05)
Do you think he feels like, or will have to become more of a public figure than he is today?

**Sebastian Mallaby** (0:09)
Demis in some ways is too sensible.

**Jacob Effron** (0:12)
What was the moment I guess your view of him kind of shifted the most?

**Sebastian Mallaby** (0:15)
He would sometimes erupt in these conversations I was having, and he would start banging the table and saying, maybe if we approach science the right way, we understand more about nature, we will be getting closer to something that we could perhaps call God.

**Jacob Effron** (0:28)
Sebastian Mallaby spent over 30 hours with DeepMind CEO and co-founder, Demis Hassabis in preparation to write his book, The Infinity Machine.
I got to sit down with Sebastian to get all his reflections on this experience. It was fascinating to talk about some of the stories that Sebastian reported on in this book, including the fact that Reid Hoffman offered a billion dollars to Demis to spin DeepMind out of Google at some point. We talked about Demis' relationship with Elon and how that's evolved over the years, as well as what he thinks of Sam, Dario and the general relationship between all the AI leaders in the space today. And we hit on Sebastian's reflections on Demis, what motivates him, what his blind spots are. Just a fascinating conversation with someone who's spent unprecedented time with someone who's really at the cutting edge of AI today. I think folks will really enjoy Sebastian's candid takes here. Without further ado, here he is.
Well, Sebastian, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Really appreciate it.

**Sebastian Mallaby** (1:20)
Thank you. It's great to be with you.

**Jacob Effron** (1:21)
I feel like The Infinity Machine and your story of DeepMind and Demis Hassabis has captivated a bunch of folks in the AI world. I know that I inhaled this book. I think I finished it in like 24 hours. It's just a gripping story and you got this just incredible access to Demis. I think sitting in this pub for multi hours at a time, talking about all sorts of things, just a fascinating opportunity and window into definitely one of the most interesting people and companies in this AI race today. And so I appreciate you writing the book and appreciate you coming on the podcast to talk about it. So our goal today is to use your reporting to understand the people, decisions and dynamics that shape the AI race that we're living through. And so maybe to start, I feel like one of the interesting themes in your book is whether this race that we have today between the labs was inevitable or could have gone differently if different players or decisions had been done.
I guess I'm curious after doing this work, do you think there was another path or was this kind of inevitable?

**Sebastian Mallaby** (2:16)
I think it was inevitable. I think when you have this sort of supremely strong technology, there's going to be multiple labs in multiple countries that are just desperate to try and build it.
And we know the China stack is pretty strong. And so despite the lack of semiconductors, they were going to have a go at it and they are actually doing pretty well. And then clearly in the US and then in a few other countries, you've got Mistral in France, Coheer in Canada. You know, there was bound to be many players just as the technology is too sweet for it to be only interesting to one team. What's strange about this whole debate, though, is that's not how people saw it ex-ante, that when Demis was starting DeepMind, he really hoped that he could avoid the race dynamic. It seems naive in retrospect, but that's what he hoped.

**Jacob Effron** (2:58)
One really compelling anecdote you had was, I believe, Demis in his interviews would say, he was interviewing a candidate and he'd say, look, at some point we may be really close to AGI and we'll go fly to a bunker and figure this all out as kind of like one team. Would you be willing to get on that flight and do that? I think certainly he's part of the founding origin of Anthropic is also this belief like, hey, we need to be the team that gets, as we get to the precipice of AGI, we're the ones figuring this out.
Clearly a key part of starting all these companies. Do you think these folks, particularly Demis, do they still believe this or how is their thinking evolved, having seen the way things have played out these past years?