Sebastian Mallaby: The Ghost in the Machine

Sebastian Mallaby: The Ghost in the Machine

From Impolitic with John Heilemann by Audacy | Puck

April 20, 2026 · 1h 20m

About this episode

John Heilemann interviews author Sebastian Mallaby about his book on artificial intelligence and its key figures.

John welcomes author Sebastian Mallaby to discuss his new bestselling book, “The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence.” Mallaby explains why Hassabis, the leader of Google’s efforts in artificial intelligence, remains an obscure and under-covered figure compared with Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and Elon Musk, the poster boys of the A.I. revolution; why, despite his relative public obscurity, Hassabis may prove more important in shaping our future than any of them; and whether he is, at bottom, the kind of person we should comfortable entrusting with such power. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

People in this episode

Host: John Heilemann

Guest: Sebastian Mallaby

Topics covered

  • artificial intelligence
  • superintelligence
  • technology
  • book discussion
  • public figures
  • future of AI

Keywords

  • Sebastian Mallaby
  • Demis Hassabis
  • DeepMind
  • superintelligence
  • artificial intelligence
  • The Infinity Machine
  • AI revolution
  • technology leaders

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Google, DeepMind

Books & works: The Infinity Machine

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