{"id":382207,"date":"2026-04-16T08:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T08:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/382207\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T08:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T08:59:09","slug":"google-ai-ceo-demis-hassabis-on-why-he-refused-to-move-to-silicon-valley-from-london-after-deepmind-was-bought-by-google-in-2014-i-wanted-to-show-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/382207\/","title":{"rendered":"Google AI CEO Demis Hassabis on why he refused to move to Silicon Valley from London after DeepMind was bought by Google in 2014: I wanted to show that …"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Google Google AI CEO Demis Hassabi has revealed why he chose to stay in London instead of moving to Silicon Valley after Google acquired DeepMind in 2014. Speaking at an event in London hosted by Intelligence Squared, Hassabis said that he chose to stay because wanted to prove that world-class AI work could happen outside the US. \u201cThere\u2019s a bit of an underdog in me,\u201d Demis Hassabis said adding \u201cI wanted to show that I\u2019m passionate about the U.K. and that London and the U.K. could do this. But the main thing was: I knew there was the talent here\u201d. Continuing further, he said \u201cI knew we would have the field to ourselves for about four or five years, the formative years of DeepMind, and we had this incredible talent that was being overlooked in the U.S.\u201d\u201cAnd with the success of DeepMind and a few other companies here, it\u2019s shown that deep tech can be viable outside of Silicon Valley. Of course, the U.S. giants have realized this, both the VCs and the big tech companies, and they\u2019ve invested now\u2014many of them have their European head offices here in the U.K. and in London,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Demis Hassabis on issue of AGI safety<\/p>\n

Stressing on the issue of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) safety, Hassabis said \u201cAt the back of my mind, I\u2019ve got this gnawing feeling that there\u2019s something much more important, much bigger than the commercial race, which is getting AGI safely over the line for humanity and to make sure that the benefits fully outweigh the risks.\u201d\u201cAnd, you know, I\u2019m going to try. We\u2019re only one actor in this now; there\u2019s five or six [other] leaders, and there\u2019s China as well, and the Chinese labs. And so I think in the next few years, the story is still to be written on how this is going to go,\u201d Hassabis continued adding\u201d\u201cThere needs to be more cooperation and coordination at an international level, ideally\u2014although that\u2019s very hard with geopolitics as it is today\u2014around safety topics and debates around the benefits versus the risks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Google AI CEO Demis Hassabis\u2019s 10 pm to 4 am shift to execute \u201cside projects\u201d<\/p>\n

During the discussion, Demis Hassabis also revealed that he has two workdays\u2014daytime hours that most of us do, and a 10 pm to 4 am shift to execute \u201cside projects\u201d and other smart ideas. He said:\u201cUsing all my chess training [Hassabis was a recognized master-level chess player by the age of 13], that\u2019s the way I think about life. In a very considered way, planning back from your goal, breaking that down into sub-goals. I think it\u2019s generally applicable to life, or at least that\u2019s what I\u2019ve tried to do, and it\u2019s been pretty effective.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Google AI CEO Demis Hassabi has revealed why he chose to stay in London instead of moving to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,11125,363,364,20369,198658,198657,198659,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-382207","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-general-intelligence","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-demis-hassabis","13":"tag-google-ai-ceo","14":"tag-google-ai-ceo-demis-hassabis","15":"tag-google-deepmind-ceo-demis-hassabis","16":"tag-new-zealand","17":"tag-newzealand","18":"tag-nz","19":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}