It seems more likely to me that Hassabis said something like "with things as they stand now, a bad end seems most likely." They start to take the fear seriously, act on it, and then talk to Hassabis again, and he says "with things as they stand now, a bad end seems likely to be avoided."

In particular, we seem to have moved from a state where AI risk needed more publicity to a state where AI risk has the correct amount of publicity, and more might be actively harmful.