Six days after Google announced that Sir Demis Hassabis was stepping down as CEO of Google DeepMind, the story that has stuck is not the one Google wrote. It is the one circulating through investor group chats and London AI circles: that Hassabis wanted out entirely, at the same moment Jeff Dean walked, and was talked into a chairmanship instead.

Observers express concern that the division has lost its independence and commercial reality has taken over

Google Deepmind is losing its autonomy, and founder Demis Hassabis may leave the AI lab for good in the coming months. AI researcher Koray Kavukcuoglu will take over day-to-day…