--- description: Demis Hassabis is on the TIME 100 2017 list. Ray Kurzweil wrote about the innovator. title: Demis Hassabis by Ray Kurzweil: TIME 100 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcbe6cc9417124fd5/6988c333bc6cfc08cc3e0ee6/time-100-2017-demis-hassabis.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 19, 2017 # Demis Hassabis by Ray Kurzweil  Photograph by David Ellis—Chilli/CPi At least a decade ahead of expectations, Demis Hassabis and his team at DeepMind created AlphaGo, a software program that defeated Lee Sedol, one of the world’s best players, at the complex game of Go. This represents a historic milestone for artificial intelligence. Demis is one of the leading scientists creating AI breakthroughs, with three Nature papers in the past two years. He believes, as I do, that AI will help solve humanity’s grand challenges—alleviating poverty, curing disease and improving the environment. Of equal importance, however, Demis is deeply committed to keeping AI safe. Every technology since fire has intertwined promise and peril. Demis has been a leader in establishing ethical guidelines to keep AI accountable. If we achieve this vision, it’s likely Demis will have played a large part. _Kurzweil, an inventor, author and futurist, is a director of engineering at Google, which owns DeepMind_ Demis Hassabis by Ray Kurzweil: TIME 100 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4742686/demis-hassabis-2/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4742686/demis-hassabis-2/"},"headline":"Demis Hassabis","datePublished":"2017-04-19T20:30:41.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:21:06.891Z","description":"Demis Hassabis is on the TIME 100 2017 list. Ray Kurzweil wrote about the innovator.","url":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4742686/demis-hassabis-2/","keywords":["time 100 pioneers"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcbe6cc9417124fd5/6988c333bc6cfc08cc3e0ee6/time-100-2017-demis-hassabis.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcbe6cc9417124fd5/6988c333bc6cfc08cc3e0ee6/time-100-2017-demis-hassabis.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4742686/demis-hassabis-2/","name":"Demis Hassabis"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"See All the TIME 100 Honorees in One Minute","description":"The TIME 100 honorees include actors, musicians, politicians, business leaders, activists and scientists, and together make a portrait of influence in 2017.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/zZCdrcRA/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2017-04-20T10:30:45.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/zZCdrcRA.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4742686/demis-hassabis-2/","duration":"PT56S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4742686/demis-hassabis-2/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```