Demis Hassabis: AGI vs Superintelligence (And Why We're Not There Yet)

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2026-01-30

YouTube video id: SVgzQpDZjjY

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVgzQpDZjjY

We've brought up AGI a couple times. Um,
so let me let me put this to you because
I was speaking with Sam Alman towards
the end of the year and I asked him, I
was like, you know, you seem to be
saying two things. We're not at AGI yet,
>> but every time he talks about what GPT
models can do, it seems like it fits his
definition. And he said, uh, a that AGI
is underdefined. And what he wishes
everybody could agree to was that we've
sort of whooshed by AGI and we move
towards super intelligence. Do you agree
with that?
>> I'm sure he does wish that, but it's um
No, absolutely not. I don't think AGI
should be sort of turned into a
marketing term or for commercial gain. I
think there is always been a scientific
uh definition of that. My definition of
that is a system that um can exhibit all
the cognitive capabilities humans can.
And I mean all. So that means you know
the the the the the kind of highest
levels of human creativity that we
always celebrate, the scientists and the
artists that we admire. So it means you
know not just solving a maths equation
or a conjecture but coming up with a
breakthrough conjecture that's much
harder you know not solving something in
physics or some bit of chemistry some
problem even like alpha folds you know
protein folding but actually coming up
with a new theory of physics something
like um you know like Einstein did with
general relativity right can a system
come up with that because of course we
can do that the smartest uh humans with
their brain ar human brain architectures
have been able to do that in history and
the same on the art side you know not
just create a pastiche of what's known
but actually be Picasso or Mozart and
create a completely new genre of art
that we had never seen before right and
today's systems in my opinion are
nowhere near that um doesn't matter how
many you know Erdos problems you solve
which for some reason you know I mean
you know that's good that we're doing
those things but I think it's far far
from what uh you know a true invention
or someone like a raman would have been
able to do and you need And you need to
have a system that can potentially do
that across all these domains. And then
on top of that, I'd add in physical
intelligence because of course, you
know, we can play sports and control our
bodies and to amazing levels, the elite
sports people that are walking around,
you know, here today in Davos. And um
and we're still way off of that on
robotics as another example. So I think
an AGI system would have to be able to
do all of those things to to really
fulfill uh the the the original sort of
goal of of the AI field. And I think,
you know, we're 5 to 10 years away from
that.
>> I think the argument would be that if
something can do all those things, it
would be considered super intelligence.
But you think AGI is a good
>> No, of course not. Because the
individual humans could we can come up
with new theories. Einstein did, Fineman
did, all all the all the greats that all
my scientific heroes, they were able to
do that. It's rare, but it's possible
with the human brain architecture. So
super intelligence is another concept
that's worth talking about. But that
would be things that can really go
beyond what human intelligence can do.
We can't think in 14 dimensions or you
know plug in weather satellites into our
brains. Uh not yet anyway but um and so
that that those are truly beyond human
or superhuman and uh that you know
that's a whole another debate to have
but once we get to AGI.
>> I was listening to you recently and
something you said really surprised me.
You were asked um on the Google Deep
Mind podcast, which is a great listen.
If you have a system today that is close
to AGI, I thought it might be Gemini 3.
>> You named Nano Banana.
>> Yes.
>> The image generator.
>> Yes.
>> What?
>> Well, you know, sometimes you have to
have these fun names and have fun with
those and and you know,
>> but how is an image generator close to
AGI? Oh well, of course, look, let's
take image generators, but also uh let's
talk about our video generator VO, which
is the state-of-the-art in video
generation. I think that's even more
interesting in from an AGI perspective.
You know, you can think of a video model
that can generate you 10 seconds, 20
seconds of a realistic scene. It's sort
of a model of the physical world,
intuitive physics, we'd sometimes call
it in physics land. and it sort of
intuitively understood how uh liquids
and and and and and objects behave in
the world. And that's um and obviously
one way to exhibit understanding is to
be able to generate it at least to the
to the to the human eye being accurate
enough to to be satisfying to the human
eye. Obviously, it's not completely
accurate from a physics point of view,
and we're getting it. We're going to
improve that, but it's it's it's steps
towards having uh this idea of a world
model, a system that can understand the
world and the mechanics and the
causality of the world. And of course,
that would be I think essential for AGI
because that would allow these systems
to plan long-term plan in the real world
um over perhaps very long time horizons,
which of course we as humans can do. you
know um I'll spend four years getting a
degree so that I have more
qualifications so that in 10 years I'll
have a better job you know these are
very long-term plans that we we all do
quite effortlessly and at the moment
without these today systems we still
don't know how to do we can do
short-term plans over one time scale um
but I think you need these kind of world
models and I think you imagine robotics
that's exactly what we want for robotics
is robots planning in the real world
being able to imagine many trajectories
from the current situation they're in in
order to complete some task. Uh that's
exactly what you'd want. Uh and then
finally from um our point of view and
why this is why we worked with Gemini as
being multimodal from the beginning able
to deal with you know video image uh and
eventually converge that all into one
model. That's our plan is that uh it'll
be very useful for a universal assistant
as well.
>> Going back to thinking game speaking of
the way that this will impact the
economy I started to feel bad for the
opponents of your technology. Um, Liid
Doll.
>> Okay.
>> Uh, demoralized.
>> Sure.
>> Uh, this guy Mana who played Starcraft
beat your bot, but
>> realize that
>> it's basically over for humans versus
machines. Um, now we're all up against
this in some way as this stuff makes its
way into knowledge work.
>> Um,
>> I thought you were meaning AI
competitors. Them I'm okay with. I don't
feel sad about that. So, relentless
progress of AI. You mean the gamers? The
gamers. Yeah. you made me feel bad for
gamers. Um, you know, but but I I want
to ask about this. You know, we're going
to have the same situation uh with
knowledge work that these these models
that, you know, performed admirably
against the world's best Starcraft and
Go players are now starting to do our
work and are we going to end up in the
same position?
>> Well, look, let me let's given given you
brought up games as an example, let's
let's look at what's happened in games.
So chess, we've had chess computers that
are better since I was a teenager than
Gary Kasparov in the 90s, right? They
weren't general AI systems, but they
were, you know, deep blue. Chess is more
popular than ever. No one's interested
in seeing computers playing computers.
We're interested in Magnus Carlson
playing, you know, the top the other top
chess players in the world. Uh,
interestingly, in Go, um, the best South
Go player in the world is a South
Korean, and he was about 15, I think,
when Alpha Go match happened. He's in
his mid20s now and he's by far the
strongest player there's ever been by
the ELO ratings because he's learned
natively young enough he was, you know,
he's the first generation you could say
that's learned with Alph Go knowledge in
the knowledge pool and um you know he
may actually be stronger than Alph Go
was back then. So I think and and we all
still enjoy Starcraft and all the other
all the other um computer games. We
enjoy Human Endeavor. I think it's a bit
more a bit similar to like we still love
the 100 meters uh uh Olympic race um
even though we have vehicles that can go
way faster than Usain Bolt but you know
we we don't you know that's that's a
different thing right and so I think we
have infinite capacity to adapt and um
and uh and and sort of evolve uh with
our technologies
why is that because we have we are
general intelligences um that's the
thing about it is we our AGI systems. We
are obviously we're not artificial.
We're general systems and it's and and
we're capable of inventing science and
uh we're tool making uh uh animals.
That's what separates us humans from
from the other animals is we're able to
make tools all around modern
civilization including computers and of
course AI being the ultimate expression
of computers that all has come from our
human minds which were evolved for you
know hunter gathering lifestyle. So it's
kind of amazing we were able and it
shows how general we are that we're able
to get to the modern civilization we see
around us today and we're talking about
things like AI and you know science and
physics and all these things and I think
we'll adapt again but there is an
important question actually beyond the
economics one about jobs and those
things is purpose and meaning because we
all get a lot of our purpose and meaning
from the jobs we do I certainly do from
the science I do. So how does what
happens when a lot of that is automated?
Um, I think, you know, that that's why
I've been calling for, you know, I think
we knew new new great philosophers
actually and it will be a change to the
human condition, but I don't think it
necessarily has to be worse. I think
we've it's like the industrial
revolution, maybe 10x of that, but we'll
have to adapt again. And I think we'll
find new um uh uh meaning in things. And
we do a lot of things already today that
are not just for economic gain. you
know, art, extreme sports, ex polar
exploration, many of these things. Um,
and maybe we'll have much more
sophisticated esoteric versions of those
things in the future.