Google DeepMind: The Podcast

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Can AI help us better predict the weather? Sep 09, 2026

Show notes

Can artificial intelligence solve one of science’s most chaotic physics puzzles? In this episode, Professor Hannah Fry sits down with Peter Battaglia, Senior Director of Research at Google DeepMind, to explore how machine learning is transforming global weather forecasting. From providing critical early warnings for Category 5 storms like Hurricane Melissa to predicting renewable energy supply and agricultural impacts, see how models like GraphCast and WeatherNext 3 are building upon decades of numerical physics to reshape our understanding of the atmosphere.

Learn more about WeatherNext 3, our most advanced global weather AI model yet: https://deepmind.google/science/weathernext/

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction

00:38 Hurricane Melissa

11:50 Why weather forecasting is hard

14:13 Traditional models vs AI models

21:55 Probabilistic forecasting

26:00 WeatherNext 3

33:00 Future outlook

43:44 Hannah's reflections

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The mathematics of AI uncertainty Aug 26, 2026

Show notes

Now, if you ask an AI a question, it will usually give you an absolute answer with unwavering authority, even if that answer turns out to be wrong. In fact, today's AI seems to be missing a fundamental human trait: self-doubt. Long before the current wave of large language models, one academic researcher was trying to give machines a sense of their own limitations. Zoubin Ghahramani has spent the last 30 years pioneering a type of intelligence built on the mathematics of uncertainty. Today, as a professor at Cambridge and VP of Research at Google DeepMind, Zoubin finds himself at the heart of another interesting debate: will improving machine uncertainty be one of the missing pieces to ever improving AI?

Timecodes:

00:00 Introduction
01:06 The role of uncertainty
07:45 Correctness vs confidence
09:40 Historical perspectives
16:10 Bayesian thinking in AI
26:30 Uncertainty in the real world
36:42 Future research and AGI

Please leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts if you enjoyed this episode. We always want to hear from our audience whether that's in the form of feedback, new idea or a guest recommendation!

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Understanding the inner thoughts of AI Jul 10, 2026

Show notes

Neel and his team are trying to do something phenomenally difficult: understand an intelligence that didn't come with a manual. Together, they explore the cutting-edge "neuroscience" of artificial intelligence—revealing the surprising, elegant structures being discovered inside these networks (like spare autoencoders), the inherent limits of looking under the hood, and why interpretability is absolutely essential if we are to build safe, aligned and trustworthy AI as we move towards AGI. Learn more about this area of research via https://deepmind.google/

Timecodes

00:00 Introduction
02:41 Motivation for interpretability research
04:01 Mechanistic interpretability
08:14 Chain of thought monitoring
18:14 Interpretability techniques
35:00 Auditing models for safety
48:53 What comes next for interpretability

Please leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts if you enjoyed this episode. We always want to hear from our audience whether that's in the form of feedback, new idea or a guest recommendation!

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When millions of AI agents meet Jun 23, 2026

Show notes

Timecodes:

00:00 Intro
1:07 Defining AI agents
4:44 Agentic exploration in science and research
15:46 Delegation between agents
22:46 Agentic security and traps
29:31 Building an agentic economy
33:22 Cognitive monoculture
36:29 Distributed intelligence

To read the research, search for: Distributional AGI Safety, May 2026 Intelligent AI Delegation, February 2026 Virtual Agent Economies, September 2025

Please leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts if you enjoyed this episode. We always want to hear from our audience whether that's in the form of feedback, new idea or a guest recommendation!

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10 Years of AlphaGo: The Turning Point for AI | Thore Graepel & Pushmeet Kohli Mar 10, 2026

Show notes

Seoul, March 2016. Two players sit hunched over a 19x19 grid covered in a sea of black and white stones. They are playing the ancient game of Go - a game of unimaginable complexity long thought impossible for a machine to master. On one side is Lee Sedol (Sae Dol), a legendary 18-time Go world champion. On the other, AlphaGo, a neural network based AI system built on a powerful technique called reinforcement learning. In the blink of an eye, the world changed. Exactly one decade later, we look back at the match that sparked the modern AI revolution. From algorithmic discovery to the solving of scientific grand challenges like protein folding, the foundation was laid right there on that wooden board.

Join Hannah Fry, Pushmeet Kohli (VP, Science) and Thore Graepel (AlphaGo team & Distinguished Research Scientist) as they unpick the legacy of AlphaGo.

🎥 AlphaGo https://youtu.be/WXuK6gekU1Y

🎥 The Thinking Game: https://youtu.be/d95J8yzvjbQ

Please leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts if you enjoyed this episode. We always want to hear from our audience whether that's in the form of feedback, new idea or a guest recommendation!

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The Future of Intelligence with Demis Hassabis (Co-founder and CEO of DeepMind) Dec 16, 2025

Show notes

Thanks for joining us this year.

🔔 Subscribe to stay updated on our return in 2026, and revisit our episode library to catch up on everything from driverless cars to drug discovery: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqYmG7hTraZBiUr6_Qf8YTS2Oqy3OGZEj

Please leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts if you enjoyed this episode. We always want to hear from our audience whether that's in the form of feedback, new idea or a guest recommendation!

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The Arrival of AGI with Shane Legg (co-founder of DeepMind) Dec 11, 2025

Show notes

Further reading

Levels of AGI paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.02462

The road to AGI (Google DeepMind Podcast, S2): https://youtu.be/Uy4OYU7PQYA

Thanks to everyone who made this possible, including but not limited to:

Presenter: Professor Hannah Fry
Series Producer: Dan Hardoon
Editor: Rami Tzabar
Commissioner & Producer: Emma Yousif
Music composition: Eleni Shaw
Audio engineer: Richard Courtice

Please leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts if you enjoyed this episode. We always want to hear from our audience whether that's in the form of feedback, new idea or a guest recommendation!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

AlphaFold: Grand Challenge to Nobel Prize with John Jumper Nov 28, 2025

Show notes

Learn more about AlphaFold: https://deepmind.google/science/alphafold/

Watch the story behind AlphaFold in The Thinking Game, now available for free: https://youtu.be/d95J8yzvjbQ

Thank you to everyone who made this possible, including but not limited to:

Presenter: Professor Hannah Fry
Series Producer: Dan Hardoon
Editor: Rami Tzabar
Commissioner & Producer: Emma Yousif
Music composition: Eleni Shaw
Audio engineer: Richard Courtice
Video editor: Anthony Le
Audio engineer: Perry Rogantin
Visual identity: Rob Ashley
Commissioned by Google DeepMind

Please leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts if you enjoyed this episode. We always want to hear from our audience whether that's in the form of feedback, new idea or a guest recommendation!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Waymo: The future of autonomous driving with Vincent Vanhoucke Nov 06, 2025

Show notes

Learn more about Waymo: https://waymo.com/

Thank you to everyone who made this possible, including but not limited to:

Presenter: Professor Hannah Fry
Series Producer: Dan Hardoon
Editor: Rami Tzabar
Commissioner & Producer: Emma Yousif
Music composition: Eleni Shaw
Audio engineer: Richard Courtice
Video editor: Anthony Le
Audio engineer: Perry Rogantin
Visual identity: Rob Ashley
Commissioned by Google DeepMind

Please leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts if you enjoyed this episode. We always want to hear from our audience whether that's in the form of feedback, new idea or a guest recommendation!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Pt.2 Beyond Phishing: Cyber Threats in the Age of AI with Four Flynn Oct 16, 2025

Show notes

In part two, Hannah and Four tackle the human element at the heart of cybersecurity: Who are the bad actors, and what motivates them? They dissect the evolving strategies designed to stop social engineering attacks - like passkeys and risk-based authentication - and confront the complex security and privacy challenges that may be introduced by autonomous agents. Please leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts if you enjoyed this episode. We always want to hear from our audience whether that's in the form of feedback, new idea or a guest recommendation! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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