
Google’s DeepMind CEO has two worries when it comes to AI. Losing jobs isn’t one of them
CNN
The CEO of Google’s AI research arm DeepMind isn’t too worried about an AI “jobpocalypse.”
Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google’s AI research arm DeepMind and a Nobel Prize laureate, isn’t too worried about an AI “jobpocalypse.” Instead of fretting over AI replacing jobs, he’s worried about the technology falling into the wrong hands – and a lack of guardrails to keep sophisticated, autonomous AI models under control. “Both of those risks are important, challenging ones,” he said in an interview with CNN’s Anna Stewart at the SXSW festival in London, which takes place this week. Last week, the CEO of high-profile AI lab Anthropic had a stark warning about the future of the job landscape, claiming that AI could wipe out half of entry-level white-collar jobs. But Hassabis said he’s most concerned about the potential misuse of what AI developers call “artificial general intelligence,” a theoretical type of AI that would broadly match human-level intelligence. “A bad actor could repurpose those same technologies for a harmful end,” he said. “And so one big thing is… how do we restrict access to these systems, powerful systems to bad actors…but enable good actors to do many, many amazing things with it?” Hackers have used AI to generate voice messages impersonating US government officials, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a May public advisory. A report commissioned by the US State Department last year found that AI could pose “catastrophic” national security risks, CNN reported. AI has also facilitated the creation of deepfake pornography — though the Take It Down Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law last month, aims to stop the proliferation of these deepfakes by making it illegal to share nonconsensual explicit images online.













