AI superintelligence looms in Sam Altman’s new essay on “The Intelligence Age”

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On Monday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman outlined his vision for an AI-driven future of tech progress and global prosperity in a new personal blog post titled “The Intelligence Age.” The essay paints a picture of human advancement accelerated by AI, with Altman suggesting that superintelligent AI could emerge within the next decade.

“It is possible that we will have superintelligence in a few thousand days (!); it may take longer, but I’m confident we’ll get there,” he wrote.

OpenAI’s current goal is to create AGI (artificial general intelligence), which is a term for hypothetical technology that could match human intelligence in performing many tasks without the need for specific training. In contrast, superintelligence surpasses AGI, and it could be seen as a hypothetical level of machine intelligence that can dramatically outperform humans at any intellectual task, perhaps even to an unfathomable degree.