Google DeepMind CEO says AI could unlock breakthroughs in medicine, energy and more
Plus, why he thinks it will ultimately save more energy than it uses.
The number of people using Google's primary artificial intelligence model, Gemini, has more than doubled to 900 million users in one year, the tech giant announced this week.
"Last year at I/O, the Gemini app had 400 million monthly active users. Today, we've surpassed 900 million, more than doubling in a year. In that same time, daily requests have grown over seven times," Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who is also the CEO of Google's parent company Alphabet, wrote in a blog post Tuesday.
With Google poised to take the top spot in the AI race, ABC News chief business correspondent Rebecca Jarvis sat down with Gemini architect Demis Hassabis, who said he believes the technology is a catalyst for global solutions and innovation, as long as the world is ready adapt and govern it.
"I think that AI, it's actually going to be almost a new era for humanity," Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, an AI research laboratory and Alphabet subsidiary, told ABC News.
The DeepMind co-founder, a former child chess prodigy, Nobel laureate and scientist, explained where he envisions AI making the biggest strides in society.
"Sometimes I compare it to -- you know, it's gonna be 10 times the impact of the industrial revolution and maybe 10 times faster," he said. "And what I would like to see AI being used for is to advance science and medicine -- that's why I spent my whole career working on AI ... I see it as the ultimate tool to push forward scientific discovery."
Jarvis noted that many critics of AI fear resulting job losses and question whether or not humanity is prepared to take on this technology, pointing out that the pace of AI development is much faster than the industrial revolution, which took place over more than a century.
"I think there's a lot of challenges too," Hassabis acknowledged. "On the one hand, we want to solve disease and help with things like energy ... and environmental issues ... but it will also disrupt jobs.
He said he believes "there will be huge new opportunities as well."
Speaking to the workers who might ultimately be displaced by AI, Hassabis added, "This is where I feel like ... broader society, civil society, academia, social sciences need to come together to try and chart out 'How do we as humanity want the next stage to go?' The future's not written."
Confronted by the fact that a small group of people are leading AI's progression and might ultimately decide humanity's future, Hassabis pushed back.
"I don't think it should be [that way]," he said. "I think there needs to be an international standards approach to this. It should be broader society -- and I think maybe that's starting to happen now."
As Americans face rising electricity costs, in part due to data centers that power AI, some have questioned who should be footing the bill. Hassabis said several larger tech companies -- including Meta, Microsoft and Google -- are already "building out their own energy infrastructures to make sure that the brunt of those costs and the energy that they're using is not passed on to the consumer."
"I think AI, in the next 10 years, is going to save far more energy than it uses in the long run," he added.
The full interview with Hassabis will air Friday, May 22, at 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC News Live, Disney + and Hulu.
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