Demis Hassabis and the Quest for AGI (Robert Wright & Sebastian Mallaby)

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org

0:24 The Infinity Machine, Sebastian’s book about Demis Hassabis 2:44 Why tell the AI story through Hassabis? 6:34 Hassabis vs the other AI titans 15:19 Does Hassabis have a messiah complex? 29:27 Deep learning’s secret sauce 36:31 Did world models cost DeepMind its LLM lead? 45:00 Why they call Hassabis “the Jedi” 51:32 Heading to Overtime

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Sebastian Mallaby (Council on Foreign Relations, More Money Than God, The Infinity Machine). Recorded August 19, 2026.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods