Google parent Alphabet is closing DeepMind's Edmonton research hub and cutting operational staff in the UK amid broader restructuring. Impacted researchers and engineers can relocate to other offices, but back-office roles face layoffs, marking the closure of DeepMind's only office not hosted inside a Google workspace.
DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis just revealed that the company is considering a private beta for its Sparrow chatbot in 2023. Unlike OpenAI's freewheeling assistant, Sparrow focuses heavily on safety guardrails and citing specific sources—providing evidence for factual answers 78% of the time in early tests. DeepMind is betting that caution and verifiable facts will matter more than unconstrained generation.
DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis is urging caution in the race toward AGI, directly pushing back against Facebook's famous mantra to 'move fast and break things.' With emerging risks spanning dangerous chemicals and rogue cyberattacks, Hassabis warns that developers cannot afford to deploy first and clean up the damage later.
The EU is moving to pull back the curtain on generative AI systems like ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion. Lawmakers are updating the upcoming AI Act to force creators like OpenAI and Google to disclose how models are built and trained, backed by potential fines of up to 6% of global turnover. Why it matters: The era of releasing powerful "black box" models into the wild with zero accountability is rapidly coming to an end.
