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The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind and the Quest for Superintelligence

Boardwalk Books

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Date Published
29 June 2026
Priority Score
4
Australian
Yes
Created
17 July 2026, 10:01 am

Authors (1)

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Buy The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind and the Quest for Superintelligence by Sebastian Mallaby from your local bookstore. Even in a te...

Summary

This work explores DeepMind's strategic pursuit of artificial superintelligence and the competitive arms race between global tech entities to achieve Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). It situates Demis Hassabis's scientific ambitions within the context of existential risk, explicitly drawing parallels to the development of the atomic bomb and the potential for a self-actualizing technology to exceed human control. The narrative examines the tension between scientific enlightenment and the catastrophic risks inherent in creating a 'superior' intelligence capable of reshaping the future of the human species.

Body

Share  Print The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind and the Quest for Superintelligence Author(s): Sebastian Mallaby Biographies & Memoirs Even in a tech world crowded with visionary leaders, Demis Hassabis is recognized as a special case. Born to working class, immigrant parents in North London, a chess prodigy by five and wizard coder in his teens, he turned down a seven-figure job offer from a video-game studio to study science at Cambridge. Long before the current obsession with AI, he founded the path-breaking company DeepMind in order to pursue a single, audacious goal- the dream of artificial superintelligence, which would solve humanity's hardest problems, change life and work as we know it, and perhaps even unlock the deepest mysteries of the Universe. For his scientific achievements, he won a Nobel Prize in 2024, and his company, now Google DeepMind, is considered the tech giant's engine room.For the past three years, Sebastian Mallaby has had unprecedented access to Hassabis and DeepMind, conducting hundreds of hours of interviews with him and his inner circle as well as detractors and rivals at other companies. The result is a revelation-packed portrait of a singular mind and a historic reckoning with the AI revolution, a shift potentially more significant than any since the dawn of complex thought 70,000 years ago.As Mallaby chronicles, DeepMind is locked in an arms race with Silicon Valley competitors to build artificial general intelligence, and thereby become the keeper of humanity's future. Yet this is not a Silicon Valley story. Hassabis has remained in Britain, and unlike his rivals, his aims are not wealth and power but scientific enlightenment. Like them, however, he is haunted by the memory of Robert Oppenheimer, the creator of the atom bomb. He aims to control the technology, but the technology may ultimately control him - and humanity writ large. 39.99 AUD Stock: 5 Add to Cart Add to Wishlist Product Information General Fields ISBN : 9780241703557 Publisher : Penguin Books, Limited Imprint : Penguin Books, Limited Weight (g) : 586.0 Publication date : 29 June 2026 Dimensions : 233mm x 152mm x 233mm Product Type : books Special Fields Author : Sebastian MallabyBind : PaperbackPages : 480