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    The chink in AI's armour: DeepMind CEO admits the tech can 'colonize galaxy' but there's one thing it can never do

    Synopsis

    DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis envisions AI ushering in a "golden era" of radical abundance and superhuman productivity, potentially starting as early as 2030. He anticipates AI augmenting human capabilities, particularly in sectors like healthcare, rather than causing widespread job displacement. This optimistic outlook contrasts with concerns about AI automating entry-level roles and increasing unemployment.

    Inner workings of AI an enigma - even to its creatorsiStock
    The CEO of Google’s AI research lab DeepMind envisions a more abstract future—one involving galaxy exploration and the rise of “superhumans,” possibly sooner than anticipated. Interestingly, Demis Hassabis believes these emerging tools will supercharge human productivity. In sectors like healthcare, for instance, AI will serve as an assistant to professionals rather than replacing them entirely, he explained.

    “There’s a lot of things that we won’t want to do with a machine. You wouldn’t want a robot nurse—there’s something about the human empathy aspect of that care that’s particularly humanistic.”

    “If everything goes well, then we should be in an era of radical abundance, a kind of golden era,” chief executive Demis Hassabis told Wired in a recent interview.

    What DeepMind CEO said on colonising galazy?

    “What generally tends to happen is new jobs are created that utilize new tools or technologies and are actually better,” said the DeepMind CEO. “We’ll have these incredible tools that supercharge our productivity and actually almost make us a little bit superhuman.”

    “If that all happens, then it should be an era of maximum human flourishing, where we travel to the stars and colonize the galaxy. I think that will begin to happen in 2030.”
    The DeepMind CEO is dead-set that advanced AI models will bring about a renaissance in human existence. The “golden era” is only five short years away.

    Will AI eat up future jobs?

    While the tech executive has rosy predictions for the future, others are already warning of the growing pains ahead. Dario Amodei, the CEO of AI company Anthropic, predicted that 50% of entry-level roles could be automated in half a decade, which could send unemployment rates soaring to between 10% and 20%. LinkedIn’s chief economic opportunity officer Aneesh Raman said that technological disruption will first break the bottom rung of the career ladder.

    However, Hassabis said he hasn’t personally witnessed much outcry about an AI jobs takeover. Instead, he purported that these new tools will turbocharge human productivity. Take healthcare, for example, he added that roles will be aided by AI, rather than replaced.


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