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Hassabis says not releasing Google's early LaMDA was probably wrong

In a 14-minute Intelligence Squared video published 15 October 2026, DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis, in discussion with Sebastian Mallaby, discussed Google's early LaMDA product.

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Check our sources · 8 facts from 2 sources
Demis Hassabis: How AI Solves Impossible Problems: a video from Intelligence Squared on YouTubeVideo: Intelligence Squared on YouTube
watch on YouTube · Video still, linking to YouTube

Key points

  1. Hassabis says "the Google Brain side of it had a product, a very early one", which the captions spell Lambda and which is LaMDA (00:12).
  2. Of not releasing it, Hassabis says "there'd been a conscious decision not to release that, and it was obviously in retrospect probably the wrong decision" (00:19).
  3. Hassabis says "there needs to be some more cooperation and coordination at an international level ideally" (13:38).

What happened

Demis Hassabis, co-founder and chief executive of Google DeepMind, spoke in a discussion with Sebastian Mallaby that Intelligence Squared published as a 14-minute video on 15 October 2026. The video's description points to the full discussion on Intelligence Squared+.

Hassabis said the Google Brain side had a very early product, called LaMDA (00:12 to 00:17); the automatic captions spell it "Lambda". Of the decision not to release it he said "there'd been a conscious decision not to release that, and it was obviously in retrospect probably the wrong decision" (00:19). He said he was not involved in that decision (00:26).

On the balance of risks he spoke of a "gnawing feeling that there's something much more important, much bigger than the commercial race" (13:10), and said "there needs to be some more cooperation and coordination at an international level ideally" (13:38).

What it means for you

Our view

This is Hassabis's account in a short video, and he says he was not involved in the decision about LaMDA, so he speaks about it as an observer. His "gnawing feeling" that something matters more than the commercial race, and his call for international cooperation, are his views, not announcements of any Google policy.

If your organisation decides when an AI feature ships, the practical point is that a company's own leader can judge a held-back release as probably wrong in hindsight. Before your next release decision, write down what you are waiting for and who will review the choice later.

It adds no new facts.

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Check our sources

Every sentence above is checked against these 2 sources.

1 About Google DeepMindGoogle DeepMind · 1 fact Open the source archived copy

  1. Demis Hassabis's title on Google DeepMind's own About page is Co-founder and CEO, Google DeepMind.

    cite
2 Demis Hassabis: How AI Solves Impossible ProblemsIntelligence Squared · 15 Oct 2026 · 7 facts Open the source archived copy

  1. The Intelligence Squared video titled "Demis Hassabis: How AI Solves Impossible Problems" was published on the Intelligence Squared YouTube channel on 15 October 2026 and runs 13 minutes 54 seconds.

    YouTube page: title Demis Hassabis: How AI Solves Impossible Problems; channel Intelligence Squared; uploadDate 2026-10-15T05:21:19-07:00; lengthSeconds 834 (13:54)
    cite

  2. The video’s description says "Watch the full discussion on Intelligence Squared+", links to a page named demis-hassabis-and-sebastian-mallaby-on-the-quest-for-agi-free, and says the discussion covers "why Google held back its own chatbot before ChatGPT".

    Toned down to what the source says
    Watch the full discussion on Intelligence Squared+: https://www.intelligencesquaredplus.com/videos/demis-hassabis-and-sebastian-mallaby-on-the-quest-for-agi-free ... They cover why Google held back its own chatbot before ChatGPT
    cite

  3. Demis Hassabis said "the Google Brain side of it had a product, a very early one. It was called Lambda in those days" (00:12); Lambda is the automatic captions’ spelling of LaMDA.

    Toned down to what the source says
    the Google Brain side of it had a product, a very early one. It was called Lambda in those days. (00:12-00:17)
    cite

  4. Demis Hassabis said "there'd been a conscious decision not to release that, and it was obviously in retrospect probably the wrong decision", speaking of Google Brain's early product (00:19).

    there’d been a conscious decision not to release that, and it was obviously in retrospect probably the wrong decision. (00:19-00:23)
    cite

  5. Demis Hassabis said "I wasn't involved in that" about the decision not to release it (00:26).

    But you can sort of see, and I wasn’t involved in that cuz we were at the time just supposed to be working on research. (00:25-00:28)
    cite

  6. Demis Hassabis said "gnawing feeling that there's something much more important, much bigger than the commercial race" (13:10).

    at the back of my mind, I’ve got this this gnawing feeling that there’s something much more important, much bigger than the commercial race, which is overall getting AGI safely over the line for humanity (13:06-13:18)
    cite

  7. Demis Hassabis said "there needs to be some more cooperation and coordination at an international level ideally" (13:38).

    But I do think there needs to be some more cooperation and coordination at an international level ideally although that’s very hard with the geopolitics as it is today (13:38-13:44)
    cite

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