The CEO of Google DeepMind has compared the IQ levels of contemporary artificial intelligence (AI) agents to domestic cats. “We're still not even at cat intelligence yet, as a general system,” remarked Hassabis, answering a question about DeepMind's progress in artificial general intelligence (AGI). However, research is progressing fast, with some huge cash and compute investments propelling it forward, and is expected by some to eclipse human intelligence in the next half-decade.
Demis Hassabis, the co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, made the artificial intelligence vs cat IQ comparison in a public discussion with one of Britain’s ex-Prime Ministers, Tony Blair. The talk was part of the Future of Britain Conference 2024, organized by the Institute for Global Change.
Hassabis highlights that his work is not focused on AI but on AGI. This gives us more perspective on how he is looking at the computer vs cat comparison. Yes, a contemporary AI can sometimes write, paint, or make music in a convincingly human-like fashion, but a common house cat has a lot more general intelligence. “At the moment we're far from Human-level intelligence across the board,” admitted Hassabis. “But in certain areas like games playing [AI is] better than the best people in the world.”
On the potential of AI to shape our lives, Hassabis boldly reckons that it is going to be as big as the Industrial Revolution, or the harnessing of fire or electricity. Going forward, and more specifically, the DeepMind CEO thinks one of the most exciting ways AI will become a leading light will be in accelerating scientific discovery in energy, materials science, health care, climate, and mathematics – and it is already doing this. Interestingly, he said we were all talking about ‘big data’ in the noughties, and AI systems are the answer to that.
Hassabis took the opportunity to plug a DeepMind project called Project Astra. This takes AI out of the restrictions of being a mere Chatbot like ChatGPT or Google Gemini , with much more awareness of a user’s situation, environment, preferences, history, and so on. In this way Project Astra aims to deliver a ‘universal AI agent’ that is helpful in everyday life.
Meanwhile, the biggest hurdles remaining for outfits like DeepMind and human-level AGI achievements include things like planning, memory, tool use, and smart questioning. The DeepMind CEO knows that there are big breakthroughs still needed, as well as compute scaling for AGIs to achieve human IQ levels.
