The “good” AI CEO still can’t stop what’s coming

Sebastian Mallaby has spent years reporting on the people shaping artificial intelligence. In his new book, The Infinity Machine, he focuses on DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis — the chess prodigy turned Nobel Prize winner who helped kick off the modern AI race. Mallaby joins Kara to talk about why Hassabis matters more than many of Silicon Valley’s louder AI personalities, how DeepMind tried to force Google to take AI safety seriously, and why even the “good” actors in AI may be powerless to slow what’s coming next. They also discuss AGI, China, mass job loss fears, AI’s potential medical breakthroughs, and whether governments are already too far behind to regulate the most powerful technology of this era. Chapter markers 00:00 Why Demis Hassabis matters 04:40 AI CEOs or gods? 06:18 What AGI means 08:50 Why DeepMind pushed safety 18:40 “AI is about power” 22:20 Can anyone stop AI? 25:21 How AI transforms medicine 29:34 The AI jobs threat 39:32 Why the U.S. needs China 51:40 The danger of AI power — Subscribe: https://goo.gl/FRleYo Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/42ntT7X... FOLLOW US Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onwithkaras... TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@onwithkaraswi... LinkedIn:   / kara-swisher-b7213   Threads: https://www.threads.com/@onwithkarasw... Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/onwithkarasw...