Google DeepMind CEO Warns of AI Risks, Calls for Global Cooperation

Google DeepMind Chief Executive Officer Demis Hassabis said artificial intelligence poses serious risks that require urgent attention and international cooperation to address.

Hassabis identified two major risk categories with AI technology: bad actors repurposing beneficial technologies in harmful ways, and technical risks inherent in increasingly autonomous systems.

“As the systems become more autonomous, more independent, they’ll be more useful, more agent-like but they’ll also have more potential for risk and doing things that maybe we didn’t intend when we designed them,” he said in a Bloomberg Television interview.

The DeepMind co-founder raised concerns that current institutions may not be strong enough to manage upcoming AI developments. He noted the technology’s global reach, adding that “it’s digital, so it means it’s going to affect everyone in the world, probably, and it’s going to cross borders.”

Hassabis, who’s attending an AI summit in India, highlighted the importance of international gatherings like those in the UK, Paris, Seoul and elsewhere as crucial forums for bringing decision-makers together with technologists. “There has to be some element of international cooperation, or maybe at least minimum standards around how these technologies should be deployed.”