If the many shortcomings of today's artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT have left you confident that AI surpassing human intelligence is still a far way off, think again. A top scientist has warned that this nightmare scenario could be a reality decades sooner than previous predictions, and it may even be just a few years away.
The warning comes from PhD mathematician and futurist Ben Goertzel, who is known for popularizing the term "artificial general intelligence” (AGI). At a summit this month, he said: “'It seems quite plausible we could get to human-level AGI within, let's say, the next three to eight years.”
He added that once we have achieved human level artificial general intelligence, it will only be a few years before a radically superhuman version will emerge. Although he conceded that his prediction may not be correct, he said that the only thing stopping an AI that is vastly superior in intelligence to its human creators would be if an AI bot's “own conservatism” compelled it to proceed with caution. He believes that an exponential escalation of artificial intelligence technology is an inevitability.
Goertzel has been investigating artificial super intelligence, a term for an AI that can match all of the computing and brain power of human civilization. He pointed out that a predictive model developed by Google computer scientist and futurist Ray Kurzweil suggests this type of intelligence will be possible by 2029.
The notion is further supported by the huge advancements that have been made in large language models in the last couple of years. This technology has evolved so quickly that much of the world is now all too aware of the potential of the technology....<<<Read More>>>...