AI in wrong hands could be 'used for harm', warns Sir Demis after Nobel prize win

Sir Demis Hassabis, who founded the London-based artificial intelligence start-up DeepMind, received the honour alongside American John Jumper, a senior research scientist at the company

British computer scientist Sir Demis Hassabis has issued a warning that artificial intelligence (AI) could be "used for harm" if it falls into the wrong hands after he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

The 48-year-old founder of London-based AI start-up DeepMind, who has won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry alongside American John Jumper, a senior research scientist at the company, made these comments during a news conference following the announcement of their award. Their "breakthrough" work on proteins earned them this prestigious honour.

Sir Demis described AI as a "very powerful" and "dual-purpose" technology with "extraordinary potential to be one of the most beneficial technologies for humanity". However, he also cautioned that it could "be used for harm" by "bad actors".

He urged: "We have to really think very hard – as these systems and techniques get more powerful – about how to enable and empower all of the amazing benefits and good use cases whilst mitigating against the bad use cases and the risks." While he believes today’s AI systems are not dangerous, he warned that this might change in the future as these technologies become more advanced and acquire "human level" intelligence.

He added: "We are going to have to be more and more cognisant of these risks and we need to start the research on that in a really big way so that we are prepared for that." Alongside Dr Jumper, Sir Demis contributed to the development of an AI model which helped solve one of biology’s biggest mysteries that has puzzled scientists for over five decades: how do protein structures form?

The Nobel prize has been jointly awarded to David Baker, of the University of Washington, who pioneered the method for designing proteins, and Sir Demis and Dr Jumper, who in 2020 presented AlphaFold2. This AI model was developed by their company to predict the complex structures of proteins, a challenge that scientists worldwide have been grappling with since the 1970s.

With the assistance of AlphaFold, researchers can now predict the structure of virtually all of the 200 million identified proteins. Since its breakthrough, AlphaFold2 has been utilised by over two million people across 190 countries.

The understanding of how proteins - life's building blocks - function could potentially pave the way for the development of innovative drugs to treat diseases such as cancer, dementia, and even Covid-19. Sir Demis expressed his immense honour at receiving the Nobel Prize, stating: "I’ve dedicated my whole life to advancing AI, because I really believe in the potential it has to improve the lives of billions of people."

He further added: "When we look back on AlphaFold, it will be the first proof point of AI’s incredible potential to accelerate scientific discovery." He sees AI as "the ultimate tool for accelerating science and scientific knowledge."

Sir Demis was born in London in 1976. A child chess prodigy, he designed and programmed a multimillion-selling game called Theme Park in his teens before attending Cambridge University. Sir Demis said playing chess from a young age led him to become "very interested" in artificial intelligence.

He said: "I would actually encourage kids to play games, but not just to play them – the most important thing is to try and make them. That is one of the best ways into programming and engineering."

He received his PhD from University College London, with the journal Science listing his research on imagination and memory as one of 2007's top 10 breakthroughs. Sir Demis co-founded DeepMind in London in 2010, which he sold to Google in 2014. In 2017, he featured in the Time 100 list of most influential people, and earlier this year, he was knighted for his services to AI. Sir Demis said he was having a "normal morning" when he received the call about the prize.

He said that in a "funny chain of events" his wife first received the call from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, before they were able to reach him "only a few minutes before they announced it". The winners share a prize fund worth 11 million Swedish kronor (£810,000).