The Bunker – News without the nonsense The Man who Built God – Meet the Oppenheimer of artificial superintelligence
11 snips
Apr 2, 2026 
Sebastian Mallaby, author and journalist who wrote The Infinity Machine, explores Demis Hassabis and DeepMind. He traces Hassabis’s working‑class roots and scientific drive. Conversations cover the moral dilemmas of building superintelligence, safety versus speed in the AI race, and how founder personalities and national values shape AI’s future.
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Secret Three Year Plan For An Oversight Board
- DeepMind and Google explored a secret three-year plan to create an independent safety oversight board.
- Mallaby recounts legal teams and proposed public-interest structures that Google ultimately rejected over reputation and control fears.
Reputation Beats Independent Oversight
- Corporate reputation concerns can block independent oversight even when safety is sincere.
- Google feared an oversight board could grandstand and expose unrelated criticisms, so it refused the proposed structure.
Values Shape AI's Personality
- Different AI founders imprint different values: Hassabis leans humanistic while others like Sam Altman or Elon Musk act opportunistically.
- Mallaby contrasts Hassabis's UK-based, left-leaning values with Altman and Musk's opportunism and vainglory.
