In response to an article by New Scientist predicting that artificial intelligence will be able to beat humans at everything and anything by 2060, Elon Musk replied that he believed the milestone would be much sooner – around 2030 to 2040.
The New Scientist Study based its story from a survey of more than 350 AI researchers who believe there is a 50% chance that AI will outperform humans in all tasks within 45 years.
At a high level, the data is not shocking, but more of an interesting tidbit from the future. Dive into the details of when those very same AI experts believe machines will be better at specific tasks than humans and things get a little creepy. Experts believe they will be better at translating languages than humans by 2024 – something that is already being done on-the-fly by Google for webpages and for spoken word via Google Translate.
High school students everywhere will be outclassed by AI that is estimated to outperform them in essay writing by 2026. AI moves in to takeover truck driving by 2027 thought we believe this will happen much sooner based on the progress Tesla is making with autonomous driving. Tesla has a fully autonomous cross-country trip planned for later this year that, if successful, will pave the way for autonomous vehicle technology to go mainstream.
The estimates get stranger with AI predicted to be able to write a bestselling book better than humans by 2049 and to perform extremely complex, dynamic surgery by 2053. All human jobs are expected to be automated within 120 years which is admittedly quite a bit farther out than 2060 but that is representative of the long tail of increasingly smaller tasks.
Elon is not all rainbows and sunshine with AI which is why he created the non-profit OpenAI organization. He co-founded the organization specifically to map out a path forward for AI research and development, and to ensure that AI is created in an intentional and safe manner.
OpenAI is a non-profit AI research company, discovering and enacting the path to safe artificial general intelligence.
While the individual tasks or groups of tasks that comprise each automated industry from trucking to making tacos at your local taqueria, OpenAI is looking beyond that to the first Artificial General Intelligence. This is an intelligence that will have the ability to adapt dynamically to a situation, learn new tasks, creatively apply itself to the new conditions and to perform much like a human would. OpenAI believes that a dynamic AGI will far surpass the AI implemented in any specific industry and will be a game-changer in AI packing the power to change the world in ways we never imagined.
With that goal in mind, OpenAI is pushing the envelope in an attempt to define the cutting edge of AI and to thereby earn the right to define the future of AI for the world. As famed computer scientist Alan Kay once said, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
Elon surely has his finger on the pulse of AI and believes that it is highly likely that it will have a massive impact on humanity. OpenAI carries this belief forward, stating that,
Artificial general intelligence (AGI) will be the most significant technology ever created by humans.
Though Elon is confident AI is moving forward at a far faster pace than scientists believe and is actively work to shape its future, he still fears the technology.