So, whom should we believe: Mama Cass or Zager and Evans?
In 1970, Cass Elliot’s hit song “New World Coming” talked of a time that was “coming in peace, coming in joy, coming in love.”
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But just one year earlier the one-hit wonder singing duo Zager and Evans scored big-time with “In the Year 2025,” which portrayed a decidedly dystopian future where “your legs got nothin’ to do — some machine’s doin’ that for you.”
With the advent of artificial intelligence, machines are doing a lot of things for us right now, and with Artificial Superintelligence AI waiting in the digital wings, the machines will be doing a lot more and doing it a lot better.
CNet defines Artificial Superintelligence this way: “a hypothetical AI system that would outperform humans at every cognitive task. It could process vast amounts of data instantly, reason across domains, learn from mistakes, self-improve, develop new scientific theories, write flawless code, and maybe even make emotional or ethical judgments.”
Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg says developing superintelligence is now in sight.
Image source: Bloomberg/Getty Images
Zuckerberg: Put superintelligence power in people’s hands
Existing AI technologies, such as ChatGPT, virtual assistants, autonomous vehicles, and recommendation engines, are considered narrow or general-purpose AI.
Some observers are excited about this new world coming, as they predict all kinds of peace, joy and love.
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Others, however, are concerned about the rise of the machines and fear humanity just might put itself on the endangered species list.
Artificial intelligence is growing rapidly, and while the market size for superintelligence hasn’t been projected as yet, startup companies along with some of the biggest tech names on the block are getting their ASI in gear.
Count Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook parent Meta Platforms (META) , among the true believers. He said in a recent video that “developing superintelligence is now in sight.”
“A lot has been written about the scientific and economic advances that AI can bring and I’m really optimistic about this,” he said.
“But I think an even more meaningful impact in our lives is going to come from everyone having a personal superintelligence that helps you achieve your goals create what you want to see in the world be a better friend and grow to become the person that you aspire to be.”
Zuckerberg said the company’s vision differs from others in the industry who want to direct AI at automating all valuable work.
“At Meta we believe in putting the power of superintelligence in people’s hands to direct it towards what they value in their own lives,” he said.
Meta, which also owns Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, has reportedly been going on an AI-hiring binge, according to The Wall Street Journal, and the influx of highly paid researchers has created new status divisions, even as some recent hires have already left their jobs.
The company is looking to build out its TBD Lab — To Be Determined — an elite research unit within the company’s Superintelligence Labs, focusing on developing next-generation AI foundation models.
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A Meta spokesman called reporting on the company’s AI operation “navel-gazing” and told the Journal that “this is yet another series of false, exaggerated or mischaracterized claims.”
The Journal later reported that Meta froze hiring in the AI division after spending months scooping up more than 50 AI researchers and engineers.
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Meanwhile, Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) has invested in Safe Superintelligence, an AI startup co-founded by former OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever.
Coincidentally enough, Sutskever’s predecessor, Daniel Gross, recently left, reportedly to join Meta’s superintelligence division.
Chief Executive Dario Amodei of Amazon- and Google-backed Anthropic told The Cube Research in November that superintelligent AI might be possible as early as 2026 or 2027.
Software giant Microsoft (MSFT) has a longstanding investment with OpenAI, the organization behind ChatGPT. This includes providing the massive supercomputing power needed to train OpenAI’s models via Microsoft Azure.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on a podcast that “a kid born today will never be smarter than AI, ever.”
“They will just never know any other world,” he said. “It will seem totally natural … unthinkable that we used to use computers or phones or any kind of technology that was not way smarter than we were. People will look back at the 2020s and think, ‘how bad those people had it.’”
Yes, well, maybe, maybe not.
Roman Yampolskiy, a computer science professor at the University of Louisville who coined the term “AI safety,” warned that without safety measures, AI could eliminate 99% of all jobs by 2030.
“And that’s without superintelligence,” he said during the “Diary of a CEO” podcast. “A system smarter than all humans in all domains. So, it would be better than us at making new AI.”
“But it’s worse than that,” he added. “We don’t know how to make them safe, and yet we still have the smartest people in the world competing to win the race to superintelligence.”
Yampolskiy said superintelligence is not on the same level as earlier game-changing discoveries, such as fire or the wheel.
“Here we’re inventing a replacement for [the] human mind,” he said. “A new inventor capable of doing new inventions. It’s the last invention we ever have to make.”
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