Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis claims that 'general-purpose AI currently has the IQ of a cat'

Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, has reportedly said in a public debate with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair that 'as a general-purpose system, modern AI does not even have the IQ of a cat.'

Current AIs only have the IQ level of a cat, asserts Google DeepMind CEO | Tom's Hardware
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/current-ais-only-have-the-iq-level-of-a-cat-asserts-google-deepmind-ceo

The public debate took place at the 'Future of Britain 2024' event hosted by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, which is run by Blair.

During the forum, CEO Hassabis emphasized that his research focuses on AGI (artificial general intelligence) rather than AI. He said, 'Today's AI can write, draw, and compose music to a degree that is indistinguishable from a human, but in terms of AGI, an average house cat has a much higher intelligence.'

On the other hand, in certain areas, such as playing games, AI has already surpassed the world's best human players, CEO Hassabis said. In addition, AI has already become indispensable to humanity in terms of processing huge amounts of data, and CEO Hassabis predicts that the development of AI will be comparable to the use of fire and electricity, or the Industrial Revolution, in the history of mankind.

In addition, CEO Hassabis mentioned that a development project called ' Project Astra ' is being carried out by Google DeepMind. Project Astra is a project announced at Google's developer event 'Google I/O' held in May 2024, and aims to develop a multimodal AI agent that can understand video and audio and answer questions in real time.

Google announces 'Project Astra,' a GPT-4o-like AI agent that understands video and audio and answers questions - GIGAZINE

Hassabis said that Project Astra's AI agent aims to liberate AI from the framework of a simple chatbot like ChatGPT or Google Gemini, and to be provided as a universal AI agent that has a deeper understanding of the user's situation, preferences, history, etc. and can be useful in everyday life.