Google cofounder Sergey Brin on why there’s never been a greater, sort of, problem and opportunity

Google co-founder Sergey Brin has stated his intent for Google's Gemini to be the first to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI). Brin, who described the current period in AI development as a “very unique time in history”, said that AI technology presents a ‘problem and opportunity’ for the companies competing in this space.During an interview with Alex Kantrowitz at Google's I/O developer conference this week, Brin emphasised the scale of the current technological “problem and opportunity.”“There's just never been a greater, sort of, problem and opportunity — greater cusp of technology,” he said when asked about his increased involvement. Brin clarified that his return to the company is not solely driven by competition.Brin, who has witnessed developments from Web 1.0 onward, is famously back at the company after stepping down from all executive positions and day-to-day roles within the company in late 2019. Reports of his increased involvement emerged in 2023, after OpenAI's ChatGPT release in 2022.Brin considers AI “far more exciting” and believes it will have a greater global impact. Despite this broader perspective, the race to reach AGI, a machine intelligence capable of performing human tasks, remains a focus.“We fully intend that Gemini will be the very first AGI,” Brin asserted, urging retired computer scientists to re-engage with the field. “Honestly, anybody who's a computer scientist should not be retired right now,” Brin, alongside Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, stated.DeepMind, an Alphabet subsidiary, is responsible for Google's AI projects, including Gemini. Brin confirmed he is now at Google “pretty much every day” to assist with Gemini's model training.