Google's Sergey Brin made a surprise appearance at Google I/O 2025, revealing the reason for his return

 

Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder, made an unexpected appearance at Google I/O 2025 yesterday. On the first day of the developer conference, a fireside conversation with DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis was set. However, when the session began, he was joined by Brin. During the conversation, both discussed artificial intelligence (AI), the new Gemini tools, the potential of the company's new models, and the path to artificial general intelligence (AGI). The Google Co-Founder also disclosed the reason for his return from retirement.

Sergey Brin and Demis Hassabis discuss AGI
On May 21, Brin, Hassabis, and Big Technology's creator, Alex Kantrowitz (moderator), held a fireside discussion that was livestreamed on YouTube. One of the main topics of discussion was AGI and how Google views the technology.

Hassabis said that AGI is a theoretical construct that describes what the human brain, as an architecture, can achieve. The argument is that people have the same brain design and can do a variety of activities. These include creativity, rational thought, scientific research, and, most crucially, genuine invention. In contrast, AI models are unable to handle the complete spectrum. While some models are fine-tuned to excel at certain tasks, generalistic models perform averagely across the board.

"It is evident to me now that systems do not have it. And the second reason I believe the excitement around AGI is exaggerated is because our systems are not consistent enough to be deemed completely general. "However, they are quite general," Hassabis remarked.

However, this does not imply that the DeepMind CEO believes it is impossible. He identified a few limitations in present AI systems, such as reasoning ability, creative innovation, and world model accuracy, and stated that AGI may be attained with "one or two more breakthroughs."

When asked if the probable timescale for AGI was before or after 2030, Brin quickly said, "Before." Hassabis, on the other hand, responded: "Just after." According to the Google Co-Founder, "We fully intend that Gemini will be the very first AGI."

Brin's optimism in AGI is unsurprising given that he stepped out of retirement in 2023 to assist the company gain a first mover advantage in the AI area. Explaining why he opted to return to work, he stated, "As a computer scientist, it's a really unique point in history; honestly, no computer scientist should be retiring right now. Should be working on artificial intelligence.