Video games can boost creativity in young people, says Demis Hassambis – Games

Demis Hassambis, co-founder and president of DeepMind, believes that children They should be encouraged to be creative and plan.

He grew up playing chess and video games. The company he founded was acquired by Google in 2014 for an amount exceeding 450 million euros.

In an interview with BBC Radio Today, Hassambis said that games helped him become a successful businessman.

“It's important to nurture the creative side, not just interact with it [τα παιχνίδια]”, he said. “You never know where the things you are passionate about will lead you, so I would suggest that parents encourage their children to be really passionate about different things and then develop their skills through them.

At the same time, he noted that children must be prepared to demonstrate their high adaptability in a “rapidly evolving world” and “embrace this adaptability.”

Hassabis, who excelled at chess as a child, designed and programmed a multi-million-selling game, called Park, as a teenager, even before enrolling at Cambridge University. After graduating, he founded a video game company, earned a doctorate in neuroscience, and then co-founded DeepMind in 2010, which was sold four years later to Google.

On Thursday, he said in a post on X that he was “delighted” to be knighted in recognition of his services to artificial intelligence.

He emphasized in his interview that he did not regret the decision to sell DeepMind to Google ten years ago, as he considered this to be the right company, with the necessary infrastructure, to take over the development of DeepMind.

“At the time there was no way in the UK to raise the hundreds of millions of dollars that would be required to pass it [οι δραστηριότητες της εταιρίας] At the international level,” he said.

Artificial intelligence has raised concerns about its use in creating fake videos, or so-called deepfakes, including the use of real people's faces and voices in dramatic videos created by artificial intelligence models.

In fact, Christopher Doss, a researcher at the RAND Corporation, commented that the disclosure of these videos has become “a race between those who try to detect them and those who try to avoid detection.”

With the AI ​​industry developing rapidly, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak organized the first AI Security Summit in 2023, where he acknowledged the “concern” expressed about the impact new tools could have on business, but estimated that along the way it would It would enhance productivity.

As part of the work of this conference, Hassabis co-signed a declaration stating that “addressing the risk of extinction caused by artificial intelligence must be a global priority alongside addressing other social risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

In an interview with BBC journalist Simon Jacques, Demis Hassabis stated that he does not consider himself a modern version of Robert Oppenheimer, the man who designed the nuclear bomb. He said his generation of scientists had responded to “warnings” about the power of science and the “dangers” that arise if that power is not “properly managed.” He even added that AI is exerting an “unimaginable positive impact” that is “broader than that of nuclear energy.”

Demi Hasabi's full interview is here Available through BBC Sounds.