Shane Legg — on the record

Shane Legg

Co-founder and Chief AGI Scientist of Google DeepMind who has called AI his number-one risk for this century since 2011, expects AGI around 2028, and signed the 2023 extinction statement and the 2026 pacing letter.

Roles

2010 – 2023Co-founder and Chief Scientist, DeepMindCo-founded DeepMind with Demis Hassabis and Mustafa Suleyman; acquired by Google in 2014.Source →
2023 – presentChief AGI Scientist, Google DeepMindTitle taken when DeepMind and Google Brain merged into Google DeepMind in 2023.Source →

On the record

Jul 2026 · Open letter · Pacing the Frontier
There is a real risk that capability development rapidly accelerates beyond our ability to understand or control the resulting systems.
Chief AGI Scientist, Google DeepMind at the time
Open letter from more than a thousand frontier-lab employees asking the US government to back international tools to pace automated AI development; signed as "Co-Founder & Chief AGI Scientist, Google DeepMind".
Pacing the Frontier →
2 Apr 2025 · Post · Google DeepMind blog
it is essential with any technology this powerful, that even a small possibility of harm must be taken seriously and prevented.
Chief AGI Scientist, Google DeepMind at the time
Co-authored with Anca Dragan, Rohin Shah and Four Flynn, accompanying the paper "An Approach to Technical AGI Safety and Security".
Taking a responsible path to AGI →
26 Oct 2023 · Podcast · Dwarkesh Podcast
If the system is really capable, really intelligent, really powerful, trying to somehow contain it or limit it is probably not a winning strategy because these systems ultimately will be very, very capable.
Chief AGI Scientist, Google DeepMind at the time
In the same interview he puts "a 50% chance that we have AGI by 2028".
Shane Legg (DeepMind Founder) — 2028 AGI, superhuman alignment, new architectures →
30 May 2023 · Statement · Center for AI Safety
Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.
Chief AGI Scientist, Google DeepMind at the time
Listed as "Chief AGI Scientist and Co-Founder, Google DeepMind".
Statement on AI Risk →
17 Jun 2011 · Interview · LessWrong
Eventually, I think human extinction will probably occur, and technology will likely play a part in this.
Co-founder and Chief Scientist, DeepMind at the time
In the same Q&A he calls AI "my number 1 risk for this century, with an engineered biological pathogen coming a close second."
Q&A with Shane Legg on risks from AI →