In an interview with The New York Times, Sam Altman CEO of Open AI, a leading artificial intelligence company and owner of ChatGPT, said, “ We’ll hit AGI much sooner than most people in the world think”. 

What it means? 

By saying so he has ascertained a timeline of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) by his own company and the advancements that have been made so far in the respective sector. His prediction to get the AGI sooner becomes more important and pivotal as AI companies across the world are trying their level best to reach this milestone. 

Potential impacts of AGI

In the interview, he also reflected upon the aftermath scenarios of AGI and how this will impact humankind. He referred to potential impact as “subtle but long-term”. “It will matter much less,” he added as he gave a timeline of AGI. 

With AGI’s arrival, he categorically mentioned that Economic Disruption will continue for a longer time than people might usually think. He said there is an inertia in society much more intense than what people think aiming to make people understand the impact of AGI on their jobs and work. 

Potential impacts of Superintelligence 

He thinks that the world will continue to go on as it goes, but the situation after the transition from AGI to superintelligence would be the testing phase. He thinks the challenges regarding safety and other concerns will arrive once the transition is completed. 

While referring to the concerns, he said that the arrival of superintelligence will be “more intense than what people think”. 

The pace of change 

While talking about the impact he also said that while all this will not be noticeable often like things happening every day, the impact would probably have a rapid pace as compared to the previous technological revolutions unfolding around the world. 

Some numbers 

In the interview, he also provided insight into the traffic and metrics that his company is currently registering for Chat GPT as of 5th Dec 2024 which goes as: 

1. 300M weekly active users 
2. 1B messages sent daily 
3. 1.3M US developers building on the platform 

What is AGI? 

Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is a concept referring to a machine's potential to understand and learn any intellectual task that a human can. It represents a form of artificial intelligence (AI) designed to replicate the cognitive abilities of the human brain.

The scenario gets more and more interesting as the tech giants take on each other in the pace of development and reach the top, precisely superintelligence.