Demis Hassabis in CNN Interview
"Optimistic About New Jobs and Increased Productivity Through Technological Advancement"
Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind and widely known in South Korea as the developer of AlphaGo, which played a historic match against Lee Sedol, has expressed that he is more concerned about losing control over artificial intelligence (AI) than about AI taking away jobs.
In an interview with CNN on June 4 (local time), Hassabis stated that he is "not greatly worried" about the end of jobs. Instead, he expressed concerns about the possibility of AI technology falling into the hands of malicious actors and the lack of safeguards to control sophisticated and autonomous AI models, emphasizing, "Both of these risks are important and challenging."
Hassabis stressed, "Even good AI technology can be repurposed for harmful objectives by bad actors," and added, "The key is whether we can prevent malicious actors from accessing such powerful systems while enabling good actors to achieve many amazing things."
In reality, crimes involving the misuse of AI technology have already become significant social issues. Examples include deep voice scams that mimic another person's voice using AI, and deepfake crimes that superimpose a specific individual's face onto explicit material. There are also warnings that AI could pose critical threats to national security.
Hassabis mentioned the need for international agreements to ensure that AI technology is used only for good purposes. He predicted, "Given the current geopolitical situation, it certainly seems difficult, but as AI becomes more sophisticated, the global need for such agreements will become clearer."
Regarding concerns that AI will take away jobs, Hassabis projected that while AI will transform the labor market, it will not eliminate jobs entirely. He stated, "Technological advancements can create new types of jobs and increase productivity," and added, "We need to consider how to distribute the productivity gains made possible by AI."
He also compared the changes brought by AI to those caused by the advent of the internet, noting, "There will be significant changes," and added, "Usually, more new and better jobs are created than are replaced, but we will have to see how it turns out this time."
Meanwhile, Hassabis is the developer of AlphaGo, the AI Go program that defeated Lee Sedol, who was the world's top Go player in 2016. He currently leads Google DeepMind, Google's core AI organization. Last year, he was recognized as one of the world's leading AI experts by jointly receiving the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his contribution to developing AlphaFold, an AI model that determines protein structures.
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