One possibility suggested by this essay is that Dario does not really believe in superintelligence (the hypothesis we are currently examining). Another is that he does, but has chosen to dissemble for strategic purposes. While I don’t think Dario is above communicating strategically, I do in fact think this is roughly his mainline worldview, and it follows pretty clearly from his beliefs in 2017. Maybe there are other possibilities apart from those two, though I haven’t figured out what they might be.
You have possibly dismissed the “strategic purposes” hypothesis prematurely here.
Saying you want to build “superintelligence” may be really bad for political capital. To me it seems entirely plausible that he has “self-censored” his beliefs around superintelligence since 2017.
Dario spells this out:
The result often ends up reading like a fantasy for a narrow subculture, while being off-putting to most people.
As far as I know[1], Hassabis has also not explicitly said he aims for superintelligence while being CEO of DeepMind, despite being an early singularitarian.
You have possibly dismissed the “strategic purposes” hypothesis prematurely here.
Saying you want to build “superintelligence” may be really bad for political capital. To me it seems entirely plausible that he has “self-censored” his beliefs around superintelligence since 2017.
Dario spells this out:
As far as I know[1], Hassabis has also not explicitly said he aims for superintelligence while being CEO of DeepMind, despite being an early singularitarian.
This is mainly based on asking Gemini 3 Pro, though.