Demis Hassabis, a prominent figure in artificial intelligence and head of Google’s DeepMind, stated on Monday that while increased international cooperation on AI regulation is essential, its achievement remains “difficult” within “today’s geopolitical context.”
As AI becomes increasingly integrated across various industries, its applications have brought forth significant ethical concerns, ranging from the proliferation of misinformation to its potential impact on employment and the broader risk of losing technological control.
During the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in London on Monday, Hassabis – a Nobel Prize laureate in Chemistry for his AI research – also addressed the challenges posed by artificial general intelligence (AGI), a technology with the potential to rival or even surpass human capabilities.
“The most important thing is it’s got to be some form of international cooperation because the technology is across all borders. It’s going to get applied to all countries,” Hassabis emphasized.
“Many, many countries are involved in researching or building data centres or hosting these technologies. So I think for anything to be meaningful, there has to be some sort of international cooperation or collaboration, and unfortunately that’s looking quite difficult in today’s geopolitical context,” he observed.
At the AI summit held in Paris in February, 58 nations, including China, France, India, the European Union, and the African Union Commission, called for enhanced coordination on AI governance.
However, the United States cautioned against “excessive regulation,” with US Vice President JD Vance asserting that it could “kill a transformative sector.”
Alongside the US, the UK declined to sign the summit’s appeal for an “open,” “inclusive,” and “ethical” approach to AI.
Hassabis on Monday advocated for the implementation of “smart, adaptable regulation,” emphasizing that “it needs to kind of adapt to where the technology ends up going and what the problems end up being.”
