Demis Hassabis has issued a stern warning: a very powerful AI may be near and humanity needs to do more to prepare.

In a short essay published on X and Substack on Tuesday, Google CEO DeepMind said there is a “precious window” to act before artificial general intelligence (AGI) arrives. AGI refers to AI that can perform cognitive tasks at the human level or beyond.

Hassabis proposed a US-led coalition that would review the most advanced models to ensure they are safe before publication. His comments follow recent interventions by the Trump administration to limit the publication of AI models by OpenAI and Anthropic.

Hassabis has spoken for several years about the need for a formal body of experts to guide the most cutting-edge advances in AI, known as frontier models. His latest proposal for a “Standards Body” also appears to be a response to the White House’s more hands-on approach to regulating AI.

“The rapid progress we are seeing in AI requires a new approach to testing the capabilities of cutting-edge AI model that is dynamic, adaptive and rigorous,” he wrote. “The United States is well positioned, given its economic and technical position, to take the first step in developing such a framework.”

Hassabis said his proposed AI body could resemble the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), a private, nonprofit Wall Street watchdog. Like FINRA, Hassabis suggested the AI ​​standards body would likely need to be funded by industry.

In his essay, Hassabis said AGI was “probably only a few years away.” He previously predicted that AGI could arrive as soon as 2030 and warned that not enough is being done to prepare for its arrival. “What’s going to happen in the next five or 10 years is going to be monumental,” he said in Davos last year, “and I think that hasn’t been understood yet.”

He has previously talked about bringing together philosophers, economists and other experts to consider the broader impacts of AI, which Hassabis sees as rapidly approaching.

“What values ​​do we want to live by, what will be the meaning and purpose, and how might even the human condition itself change?” he wrote in his Tuesday post. “Obviously, resolving these issues cannot and should not be left to technologists alone. All sectors of society are required to come together to help define this new chapter.”

Now, Hassabis is making it clear that he believes time is of the essence.

“What we do now collectively will determine how the next phase of civilization will unfold,” he wrote.

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