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There is a scene early in Sebastian Mallaby’s new book The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind and the Quest for Superintelligence that may unsettle anyone who has taken comfort in the idea that the people building AI (artificial intelligence) know what they are doing. 

The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind and the Quest for Superintelligence, Sebastian Mallaby, Penguin Books, 2026.

Geoffrey Hinton, Nobel laureate, celebrated as “godfather of deep learning,” and considered one of the most revered minds in modern science, is at the Royal Society in London. Spotted in conversation with the philosopher Nick Bostrom, Hinton confesses that he believes AI systems will be weaponised against ordinary people. When Bostrom asks why he is building them anyway, Hinton’s answer is disarming in its honesty: the prospect of discovery, he says, “is simply too sweet.”

That exchange gives Mallaby his title and an animating question: Is the race to build artificial general intelligence a story of scientific heroism, or a tragedy dressed up in the language of progress? 

The book does not resolve this question, perhaps it cannot, but it is a formidable attempt to hold it open without flinching.

The protagonist of the book is Demis Hassabis, the co-founder of DeepMind and winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024, whose company was acquired by Google and has now become the most scientifically credentialed AI lab anywhere. 

Hassabis, to say the least, is an exceptional individual. A child prodigy and neuroscientist, his doctoral studies of memory and imagination became the foundation for machine learning algorithms.

Having already written some of the best books about hedge funds, the World Bank, and venture capital, thus putting himself among the great storytellers about the intricacies of capitalism, Mallaby spent three years and more than thirty hours talking directly to Hassabis to complete the book. 

The effort is obvious from the outset. The Infinity Machine flows with the pace of a thriller and the rigour of research. Mallaby spoke with more than a hundred people in and out of........

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