Demis Hassabis believes that reducing AI functions is stupid

Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMindKeen to talk about the programming skills of his company’s latest model, twin 3.5 flash. The model has been trained to perform complex proxy coding tasks: translating large code bases from one language to another; Find and fix hidden errors in complex code; Even writing entire operating systems from scratch.

However, Hassabis doesn’t think this means doom for software developers. “I have no idea why people are talking so confidently about it,” Hassabis told WIRED before unveiling the new model at the show. Google I/O event today.

“There may be an ulterior motive for posting these messages; raising money or something else,” Hassabis says. “From my point of view, and from DeepMind and Google’s point of view, if engineers become three or four times more productive, then (we want to) do three or four times more things.”

The amazing programming capabilities of the latest models have led to widespread concerns that artificial intelligence may be about to eliminate programming roles and other managerial jobs. Executives at some AI companies predicted widespread job displacement, while some prominent technology companies, including… Amazon, Sales forceand roadblockhas He blamed the recent layoffs On the use of artificial intelligence.

Hassabis believes that Alphabet, which oversees several companies alongside Google, may be well positioned to benefit from the revolution in software productivity. “I have a million ideas, from laboratory drug discovery to game design,” he says. “I would love to have some freelance engineers doing these things.”

Hassabis says companies seeking to replace developers with AI may be making a big mistake. “I think it’s a lack of imagination, a lack of understanding of what’s actually going to happen,” he says.

Google unveiled a slew of AI elements at its annual developer event. Google says that with an encryption tool called Antigravity, Gemini 3.5 Flash provides leading encryption and reasoning capabilities, but is faster and cheaper than its competitors’ offerings. The Gemini 3.5 Pro, a new, more powerful version of its flagship model, will debut next month.

The company needs to catch up when it comes to AI coding, which has emerged as a crucial and profitable application for the latest AI models. Anthropic and OpenAI lead developer adoption of their tools, Claude and Codex, according to Stack Overflow 2025 Survey.

The company also demonstrated a proxy assistant called Spark that lives in Google Cloud and can access its applications. Google says the design is intended to be more secure than something like OpenClaw because it has limited access to personal data.

Other agent demos included a version of Android with a built-in AI agent and an updated version of Google Search that uses agent coding to quickly build a site or app in response to a search query.

AI programming has captured the attention of the AI ​​world in recent months, even inspiring hope that models might one day be able to rewrite their own code in a self-improving loop. Hassabis says it’s possible but doubts it would immediately lead to superhuman level artificial intelligence.

He says progress in other areas of science may require that AI models have a deeper understanding of the physical world and even the ability to conduct experiments within it.

Even in a world of programming that seems to have been solved, Hassabis says it’s noteworthy that AI has yet to produce a blockbuster app or video game without human help. “I think there’s something missing,” he says.