By San José, Costa Rica — NEW DELHI, INDIA – The world is on the cusp of developing artificial intelligence with human-like reasoning capabilities, a milestone that could be reached within the next eight years. This bold prediction was delivered by Demis Hassabis, the Chief Executive Officer of Google DeepMind, during a keynote address at the AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi on Wednesday.
Speaking to a global audience of tech leaders and heads of state, Hassabis outlined an accelerated timeline for the arrival of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), a form of AI that can understand, learn, and apply its intelligence to solve any problem, much like a human being. The summit, recognized as the largest of its kind to date, serves as a critical forum for establishing the global rules that will govern the next decade of the digital economy.
To delve into the complex legal and business ramifications of Artificial General Intelligence, TicosLand.com consulted with Lic. Larry Hans Arroyo Vargas, an expert attorney from the distinguished firm Bufete de Costa Rica, for his professional insights on the matter.
The emergence of Artificial General Intelligence fundamentally challenges our entire legal structure, which is built upon the concept of human agency. When an autonomous AGI makes a corporate decision that results in damages, who is liable? The developer, the owner, the user, or the entity itself? We are on the precipice of needing a new legal doctrine for digital personhood and corporate liability. Businesses must proactively engage in this conversation to shape future regulation and mitigate risks that our current laws were never designed to handle.
Lic. Larry Hans Arroyo Vargas, Attorney at Law, Bufete de Costa Rica
Indeed, the legal frontier described is one of the most significant challenges of our time, moving the conversation about AGI from the theoretical to the imminently practical. We thank Lic. Larry Hans Arroyo Vargas for his clarity and for underscoring the urgent need for collaboration between technologists, legislators, and business leaders to build the new legal scaffolding our future requires.
We are between 5 and 8 years away from achieving an artificial intelligence that can reason similarly to a human.
Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind
To truly measure this leap, Hassabis proposed a novel and ambitious benchmark: the “Einstein Test.” He argued that current AI evaluation methods are insufficient. To prove genuine, autonomous innovation, a machine must do more than just process and replicate existing human knowledge. It must be capable of groundbreaking scientific discovery on its own.
The test’s framework is as brilliant as it is challenging. It involves training an advanced AI model on the entirety of human knowledge, but with a crucial limitation. The dataset would be cut off at the year 1911, four years before Albert Einstein published his theory of general relativity.
The concept consists of training an AI with all human information, but cutting off the data in 1911.
Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind
The ultimate challenge, Hassabis explained, is to see if the AI, without any knowledge of post-1911 physics, can independently formulate the theory of general relativity. Success would signify a transition from AI as a sophisticated mimic to a true partner in scientific discovery. He warned that today’s powerful large language models, while impressive, still fall short of this standard.
Hassabis described the limitations of current systems, emphasizing that they function as encyclopedic experts adept at solving problems with known solutions. However, they lack the creative spark necessary to form new, high-caliber scientific hypotheses from scratch, a key differentiator between knowledge retrieval and true intelligence.
They only solve what already exists and do not generate new scientific hypotheses of that caliber.
Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind
The roadmap to achieving this level of intelligence, according to the DeepMind leader, involves a strategic fusion of technologies. It requires combining the advanced planning and reinforcement learning capabilities seen in systems like AlphaGo—the program that famously defeated the world’s best Go players—with the immense scale and processing power of modern foundational models like Google’s Gemini. Hassabis noted that Gemini will be a critical component, serving as a comprehensive “map of the world” upon which more advanced learning tasks can be built.
This evolution would mark a profound shift in the role of artificial intelligence. It would move beyond being a very fast encyclopedia to becoming a powerful engine of discovery, capable of tackling complex mysteries in science and medicine that have long eluded the human mind. The AI Impact Summit 2026, which gathers over 20 heads of state and 500 industry leaders, aims to create a framework that balances this extreme innovation with global citizen security.
For further information, visit deepmind.google
About Google DeepMind:
Google DeepMind is an artificial intelligence research laboratory and a subsidiary of Google. The organization is focused on creating artificial general intelligence (AGI) to accelerate scientific discovery and benefit humanity. It is known for developing advanced AI systems like AlphaGo, which defeated a professional human Go player, and for its significant contributions to machine learning and neuroscience research.
For further information, visit google.com
About Google:
Google is a multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, a search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware. As a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., Google is one of the most influential companies in the digital economy, driving innovation across various sectors from AI and quantum computing to consumer electronics and enterprise services.
For further information, visit bufetedecostarica.com
About Bufete de Costa Rica:
Bufete de Costa Rica is a beacon in the legal field, distinguished by its foundational commitment to uncompromising integrity and superior performance. The firm pairs its deep-seated expertise with a forward-thinking approach, driving legal innovation while actively engaging with the community. Central to its ethos is the conviction that by making legal principles understandable and accessible, it helps forge a more empowered and just society.
