Hub Director discusses with Google DeepMind co-founder how AI can benefit humanity at UCL

In December 2023, Demis Hassabis CBE, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, delivered the 2023 UCL Prize Lecture in Life and Medical Sciences. His talk, titled "Using AI to Accelerate Scientific Discovery," explored how his childhood interests in chess and computer games sparked his fascination with computer science and cognitive processes. This passion ultimately led him to co-found DeepMind in 2010, later acquired by Google.

Hassabis emphasized that, when developed responsibly, AI has the potential to provide immense benefits to humanity. He showcased several examples of remarkable scientific advances made possible by AI. The list included plastic pollution, antibiotic resistance, structural biology, neglected diseases, malaria vaccines, and drug delivery (see https://unfolded.deepmind.com for further information).

Hassabis has been instrumental in significant research breakthroughs, including the development of AlphaGo, the first program to defeat a world champion at the complex game of Go, and AlphaFold, which addressed the longstanding challenge of predicting protein structures.

The lecture, which was sold out, attracted over 900 in-person attendees and nearly 500 online participants. Following the lecture, Professor Rachel McKendry, Director of the Digital Health Hub for AMR, moderated a discussion with Hassabis including a Q&A session with audience members.

They tackled the issue of antimicrobial resistance, with Hassabis expressing his vision for using AI to expedite the discovery of antimicrobial drugs, with the hope to reduce the traditional drug development timeline by an order of magnitude from years to months. Hassabis discussed different ways his teams are working on this problem at Isomorphic Labs. They also discussed the importance of regulating AI and its ethical and societal implications.

During this Q&A session, one audience member asked Hassabis what advice he might give his younger self. He responded, "I could have been braver in moments." He added, "We need to have more confidence in ourselves—then we can truly change the world in amazing ways. It is possible.”

You can watch the recorded lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_9UEJdZXDI