Just a couple of months ago a leaked note it’s said to be from a Google researcher who cast doubt on the company’s future in AI, claiming it has “no moat” in the industry, and now, we apparently have confirmation that it was real. In an interview with DecoderDemis Hassabis, the CEO of Google’s DeepMind, said the edge that while he believes the memo was legitimate, he disagrees with its conclusions.
“I think that memo was real. I think Google engineers often write various documents and sometimes they get leaked and go viral,” Hassabis said. “I think it’s interesting to listen to them, and then you have to chart your own course. And I haven’t read that specific memo in detail, but I don’t agree with the conclusions of that.”
The note, which was obtained by semi-analysis from a public Discord server, says that neither Google nor OpenAI have what it takes to succeed in the AI industry. Instead, the researcher claims that “a third faction has been quietly eating our lunch”: open source AI models that the researcher says are “faster, more customizable, more private, and pound-for-pound more capable.”
But Hassabis is less pessimistic about Google’s future in the AI industry. He believes the competitive nature of the company’s researchers will help propel Google to the forefront of AI, adding that the newly merged teams at Google Brain and Google DeepMind, which Hassabis has been asked to lead, will likely give as result in further progress.
“Look at the history of what Google and DeepMind have done in terms of generating new innovations and breakthroughs,” Hassabis said. “I would bet on us, and I’m certainly very confident that that will continue and actually be even more true over the next decade in terms of us producing the next key breakthroughs like we’ve done in the past.”
