Join mathematician and broadcaster Professor Hannah Fry as she goes behind the scenes of the world-leading research lab to uncover the extraordinary ways AI is transforming our world. No hype. No spin, just compelling discussions and grand scientific ambition.
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Seoul, March 2016. Two players sit hunched over a 19x19 grid covered in a sea of black and white stones. They are playing the ancient game of Go - a game of unimaginable complexity long thought impossible for a machine to master. On one side is Lee Sedol (Sae Dol), a legendary 18-time Go world champion. On the other, AlphaGo, a neural network based AI system built on a powerful technique called reinforcement learning. In the blink of an eye, the world changed. Exactly one decade later, we look b...
Thanks for joining us this year. 🔔 Subscribe to stay updated on our return in 2026, and revisit our episode library to catch up on everything from driverless cars to drug discovery: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqYmG7hTraZBiUr6_Qf8YTS2Oqy3OGZEj Please leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts if you enjoyed this episode. We always want to hear from our audience whether that's in the form of feedback, new idea or a guest recommendation! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. Se...
DeepMind co-founder Shane Legg clarifies AGI as a spectrum, defining minimal AGI as systems capable of typical human cognitive tasks, with superintelligence expected to far exceed human limits due to computational advantages. He outlines the current state of AI, its path to reliability, and the critical importance of embedding ethical reasoning and robust safety protocols. Legg predicts significant near-term economic disruptions and emphasizes the urgent need for society to strategically prepare for a post-AGI world to ensure widespread human flourishing.
Learn more about AlphaFold: https://deepmind.google/science/alphafold/ Watch the story behind AlphaFold in The Thinking Game, now available for free: https://youtu.be/d95J8yzvjbQ Thank you to everyone who made this possible, including but not limited to: Presenter: Professor Hannah Fry Series Producer: Dan Hardoon Editor: Rami Tzabar Commissioner & Producer: Emma Yousif Music composition: Eleni Shaw Audio engineer: Richard Courtice Video editor: Anthony Le Audio engineer: Perry Rogantin Visu...
Learn more about Waymo: https://waymo.com/ Thank you to everyone who made this possible, including but not limited to: Presenter: Professor Hannah Fry Series Producer: Dan Hardoon Editor: Rami Tzabar Commissioner & Producer: Emma Yousif Music composition: Eleni Shaw Audio engineer: Richard Courtice Video editor: Anthony Le Audio engineer: Perry Rogantin Visual identity: Rob Ashley Commissioned by Google DeepMind Please leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts if you enjoyed this episod...
In part two, Hannah and Four tackle the human element at the heart of cybersecurity: Who are the bad actors, and what motivates them? They dissect the evolving strategies designed to stop social engineering attacks - like passkeys and risk-based authentication - and confront the complex security and privacy challenges that may be introduced by autonomous agents. Please leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts if you enjoyed this episode. We always want to hear from our audience whether tha...
Further reading: CodeMender: https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/introducing-codemender-an-ai-agent-for-code-security/ Cybersecurity at Google: https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/ai-security-frontier-strategy-tools/ Threat intelligence report: https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/adversarial-misuse-generative-ai Thanks to everyone who made this possible, including but not limited to: Presenter: Professor Hannah Fry Series Producer: Dan Hardoon Editor: Rami Tzaba...
In this episode, Professor Hannah Fry speaks with Jack Parker-Holder and Shlomi Fruchter about Genie 3, a general-purpose world model that can generate an unprecedented diversity of interactive environments. The conversation covers how this model's auto-regressive nature allows for the creation of consistent, explorable worlds from text or image prompts, and how its capabilities differ from video generation models like Veo. Further reading Genie 3 SIMA, A generalist AI agent for 3D virtual envir...
This week's episode is a slight departure from our usual deep dives. Join Paige Bailey, DevRel lead, as she guides Hannah Fry though some of her favorite AI tools. Having spent years understanding the 'what' of these models, Hannah finally gets to experience the 'how’ – from generating prompts and 'vibe coding', to creating her own version of the infamous spaghetti meme. Learn more and try the tools yourself: Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/ Google Labs: https://labs.google/ AI Studio: https:/...
Further reading: Natural forests of the world: paper , data and benchmarks Forest loss drivers: paper, summary from WRI , and blog from GFW Forest loss drivers code: Google Earth Engine ; at WRI ; at GFW ; or Zenodo . Deep learning based remote sensing (open source): Jeo , GeeFlow Species mapping paper: Arxiv Google resources: Google Earth Engine . Agri with Google , wildlife cameras Perch: code, paper Perch x coral reefs: Blog Agile Modelling: paper , code DolphinGemma: blog Please leave us a r...
In this episode, host Hannah Fry is joined by Max Jaderberg and Rebecca Paul of Isomorphic Labs to explore the future of drug discovery in the age of AI. They discuss how new technology, particularly AlphaFold 3, is revolutionizing the field by predicting the structure of life’s molecules, paving the way for faster and more efficient drug discovery. They dig into the immense complexities of designing new drugs: How do you find the right molecular key for the right biological lock? How can AI hel...
In this episode, Hannah is joined by Carolina Parada, Senior Director and Head of Robotics at Google DeepMind. They explore the recent leap forward in robotic capabilities, highlighting advancements in multimodal understanding and embodied reasoning, which enable robots to interact with the physical world with unprecedented generality. They dig into the two-system approach - ‘slow and fast thinking‘ - that enables both complex reasoning and rapid, reactive movements. Using examples from robots l...
In this episode, Professor Hannah Fry interviews Joelle Barral, Senior Director of Research at Google DeepMind, about AI in healthcare. They discuss existing AI applications including image analysis for diabetic retinopathy and the expansion of diagnostic tools as a result of multi-modal models. The conversation highlights AI's potential to improve healthcare delivery, personalize treatment, expand access worldwide, and ultimately, bring back the joy of practicing medicine. Further reading: Med-...
In this episode, Hannah is once again joined by Murray Shanahan, Professor of Cognitive Robotics at Imperial College London and Principal Scientist at Google DeepMind, for a philosophical deep dive on AI. They explore everything from consciousness and metacognition in animals, to symbolic AI and neural networks. Murray also shares insights into his involvement with the film 'Ex Machina' and discusses the idea of reasoning, anthropomorphism, and the future of AI. Further reading / listening: Towa...
In this episode of Google DeepMind: The Podcast, VP of Reinforcement Learning, David Silver, describes his vision for the future of AI, exploring the concept of the "era of experience" versus the current "era of human data". Using AlphaGo and AlphaZero as examples, he highlights how these systems surpassed human capabilities by engaging in reinforcement learning without prior human knowledge. This approach contrasts with large language models, which depend on human data and feedback. Silver emph...
In our final episode for the year, we explore Project Astra, a research prototype exploring future capabilities of a universal AI assistant that can understand the world around you. Host Hannah Fry is joined by Greg Wayne, Director in Research at Google DeepMind. They discuss the inspiration behind the research prototype, its current strengths and limitations, as well as potential future use cases. Hannah even gets the chance to put Project Astra's multilingual skills to the test. Further readin...
In this episode, Hannah is joined by Oriol Vinyals, VP of Drastic Research and Gemini co-lead. They discuss the evolution of agents from single-task models to more general-purpose models capable of broader applications, like Gemini. Vinyals guides Hannah through the two-step process behind multi modal models: pre-training (imitation learning) and post-training (reinforcement learning). They discuss the complexities of scaling and the importance of innovation in architecture and training processe...
There is broad consensus across the tech industry, governments and society, that as artificial intelligence becomes more embedded in every aspect of our world, regulation will be essential. But what does this look like? Can it be adopted without stifling innovation? Are current frameworks presented by government leaders headed in the right direction? Join host Hannah Fry as she discusses these questions and more with Nicklas Lundblad, Director of Public Policy at Google DeepMind. Nicklas emphasi...
NotebookLM is a research assistant powered by Gemini that draws on expertise from storytelling to present information in an engaging way. It allows users to upload their own documents and generate insights, explanations, and—more recently—podcasts. This feature, also known as audio overviews, has captured the imagination of millions of people worldwide, who have created thousands of engaging podcasts ranging from personal narratives to educational explainers using source materials like CVs, pers...
Join Professor Hannah Fry at the AI for Science Forum for a fascinating conversation with Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis. They explore how AI is revolutionizing scientific discovery, delving into topics like the nuclear pore complex, plastic-eating enzymes, quantum computing, and the surprising power of Turing machines. The episode also features a special 'ask me anything' session with Nobel Laureates Sir Paul Nurse, Jennifer Doudna, and John Jumper, who answer audience questions about the f...
Imagine a future where we interact regularly with a range of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) assistants — and where millions of assistants interact with each other on our behalf. These experiences and interactions may soon become part of our everyday reality. In this episode, host Hannah Fry and Google DeepMind Senior Staff Research Scientist Iason Gabriel discuss the ethical implications of advanced AI assistants. Drawing from Iason's recent paper, they examine value alignment, anthropomo...
How human should an AI tutor be? What does ‘good’ teaching look like? Will AI lead in the classroom, or take a back seat to human instruction? Will everyone have their own personalized AI tutor? Join research lead, Irina Jurenka, and Professor Hannah Fry as they explore the complicated yet exciting world of AI in education. Further reading: Towards Responsible Development of Generative AI for Education: An Evaluation-Driven Approach Thanks to everyone who made this possible, including but not li...
In this episode, Professor Hannah Fry sits down with Pushmeet Kohli, VP of Research at Google DeepMind to discuss AI’s impact on scientific discovery. They go on a whirlwind tour of scientific projects, touching on recent breakthroughs in AlphaFold, material science, weather forecasting, and mathematics to better understand how AI can enhance our scientific understanding of the world. Further reading: Millions of new materials discovered with deep learning GraphCast: AI model for faster and more...
Games are a very good training ground for agents. Think about it. Perfectly packaged, neatly constrained environments where agents can run wild, work out the rules for themselves, and learn how to handle autonomy. In this episode, Research Engineering Team Lead, Frederic Besse, joins Hannah as they discuss important research like SIMA (Scalable Instructable Multiworld Agent) and what we can expect from future agents that can understand and safely carry out a wide range of tasks - online and in t...
Professor Hannah Fry is joined by Jeff Dean, one of the most legendary figures in computer science and chief scientist of Google DeepMind and Google Research. Jeff was instrumental to the field in the late 1990s, writing the code that transformed Google from a small startup into the multinational company it is today. Hannah and Jeff discuss it all - from the early days of Google and neural networks, to the long term potential of multi-modal models like Gemini. Thanks to everyone who made this po...
Building safe and capable models is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Can we make AI work for everyone? How do we prevent existential threats? Why is alignment so important? Join Professor Hannah Fry as she delves into these critical questions with Anca Dragan, lead for AI safety and alignment at Google DeepMind. For further reading, search "Introducing the Frontier Safety Framework" and "Evaluating Frontier Models for Dangerous Capabilities". Thanks to everyone who made this possible,...
Professor Hannah Fry is joined by Google DeepMind's senior research director Douglas Eck to explore AI's capacity for true creativity. They delve into the complexities of defining creativity, the challenges of AI generated content and attribution, and whether AI can help us to connect with each other in new and meaningful ways. Want to watch the full episode? Subscribe to Google DeepMind's YouTube page and stay tuned for new episodes. Further reading: Veo Imagen SynthID An update on web publishe...
It has been a few years since Google DeepMind CEO and co-founder, Demis Hassabis, and Professor Hannah Fry caught up. In that time, the world has caught on to artificial intelligence—in a big way. Listen as they discuss the recent explosion of interest in AI, what Demis means when he describes chatbots as ‘unreasonably effective’, and the unexpected emergence of capabilities like conceptual understanding and abstraction in recent generative models. Demis and Hannah also explore the need for rigo...
Hannah wraps up the series by meeting DeepMind co-founder and CEO, Demis Hassabis. In an extended interview, Demis describes why he believes AGI is possible, how we can get there, and the problems he hopes it will solve. Along the way, he highlights the important role of consciousness and why he’s so optimistic that AI can help solve many of the world’s major challenges. As a final note, Demis shares the story of a personal meeting with Stephen Hawking to discuss the future of AI and discloses H...
AI needs to benefit everyone, not just those who build it. But fulfilling this promise requires careful thought before new technologies are built and released into the world. In this episode, Hannah delves into some of the most pressing and difficult ethical and social questions surrounding AI today. She explores complex issues like racial and gender bias and the misuse of AI technologies, and hears why diversity and representation is vital for building technology that works for all. For questio...
