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Sir Demyth wants children to learn adaptability in a 'very rapidly changing world'
Parents worried about their children spending hours playing games should instead encourage creative uses of technology, a recently knighted AI billionaire told the BBC.
Sir Demis Hassabis said they should be encouraged to create and program.
Sir Demyth told BBC Radio 4's Today that the game had helped him achieve success.
“It’s important to cultivate your creative side, not just perform.” [games]”You never know where your passion will take you. So I would actually encourage parents to let their kids be really passionate about things and develop skills through that.”
He said children were ready to adapt to the “very rapidly changing world” ahead and needed to “just embrace that ability to adapt.”
Chess prodigy Sir Demise designed and programmed a multi-million selling game called Theme Park as a teenager before attending Cambridge University.
After graduating, he founded a video game company, earned a PhD in neuroscience, and co-founded DeepMind in London in 2010, which he later sold to Google.
On Thursday, he wrote to X that he was “delighted” to be knighted for his contributions to AI.
He told the BBC that the knighthood recognizes what he and his team have done to “sow the seeds across the AI field and the AI industry” and their contribution to British life.
He said he doesn't regret selling DeepMind to Google 10 years ago, saying he thought DeepMind was the right company with the computing power needed to take over the company.
“Britain at that time did not have the capacity to raise the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to undertake global activities,” he said.
AI has raised concerns about its use in imitating people in “deepfake” videos, such as using real people's faces and voices in AI-generated sex videos.
There are also concerns that the way AI is trained using public data could lead to “algorithmic bias.” This is of particular concern when deployed to automate decisions such as selecting relevant resumes for job seekers.
As the AI industry develops rapidly, Chancellor Rishi Sunak will hold the first AI Safety Summit in 2023, acknowledging there is “anxiety” about the impact new tools will have on the workplace, but says time is running out. He said that productivity will improve over time.
At the summit, Lord Demyst signed a statement stating that “reducing the risk of extinction due to AI should be a global priority, alongside other society-wide risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” did.
In an interview with BBC business editor Simon Jack, Lord Demyst said he did not consider himself to be anything like Robert Oppenheimer, the designer of the nuclear bomb.
He said his generation of scientists had heeded “warnings” about the power of science and the “risks” associated with that power “if it is not handled correctly”. He added that AI has an “incredibly positive impact” that is “broader than nuclear.”
