Silicon Valley has no monopoly on AI brain power. That’s why Demis Hassabis is very happy to stay in London

When Demis Hassabis was 6 years old, he remembers his father giving him the age-old reassurance prompt used every day by millions of parents around the world—“do your best.” For a young Hassabis, already showing the precocious talents which were to culminate in him becoming one of the most important artificial intelligence leaders in the world, “do your best” opened up a whole host of possibilities. 

“I’m a bit of an extreme person,” he said. “And I took it in a way [that’s] extreme and logical. I was sort of thinking: ‘What is your best?’ And how do I know I’ve done my best? It must mean to the point of complete exhaustion, just prior to near death, then you’ve done your best, have you? Isn’t that logical?’”

Hassabis was speaking at an event in London hosted by Intelligence Squared (there is a joke about Hassabis being “intelligence cubed”). Alongside him was Sebastian Mallaby, the author of Hassabis’s new biography, The Infinity Machine. “AI is the most interesting transformation in the world, and Demis Hassabis is the most interesting figure in AI,” Mallaby said when asked “why now” about the book.

“Doing his best” —to the point of exhaustion—has been a guiding mantra for Hassabis’s life. Interviewed by Fortune in February, the co-founder of Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs revealed that he has two workdays—daytime hours that most of us do, and a 10pm to 4am shift to execute “side projects” and other smart ideas.

“Using all my chess training [Hassabis was a recognised Master-level chess player by the age of 13], that’s the way I think about........

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