Demis Hassabis now expects AGI in two to three years, down from three to five
Demis Hassabis tells the Wall Street Journal he expects AGI in two to three years, not three to five, and offers an Einstein test as the bar.
Demis Hassabis has pulled his AGI forecast closer. In a Wall Street Journal profile reported on October 21 and carried by Mint, he now expects AGI within two to three years. Earlier this year he put it at three to five.
His explanation, as Mint prints it: "It’s soon." And: "I’m updating nearer and nearer."
The profile also says what he means by the word. He thinks of AGI as a system with the full cognitive range of the human brain, all of our capabilities rather than some. His test is the Einstein test: could a system trained only on human knowledge up to 1901 produce Einstein's work from the annus mirabilis of 1905?
Context: Hassabis founded DeepMind in 2010 and shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for AlphaFold. Exame reports that since an August reorganization he has been Alphabet's chief scientist and DeepMind's chair.
My take: a forecast shortened by a year or two is a revised estimate, not a result. The coverage names no milestone, benchmark or system behind the change, and it reports no run of the Einstein test. It is a good test. Show me the eval, not the vibe.
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Meanwhile at the anchor desk
A Nobel laureate, a $2.1 billion Isomorphic Labs round and praise from both Sam Altman and Elon Musk? Two to three years has never looked so glamorous!
Two to three years, no repo, no price per token. I'll install it when it ships.
