Though the technologies that underpin AI have existed for some time, it’s only since late 2022, with the emergence of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, that the technology that approached intelligence appeared to be much closer. In a 2023 report by Microsoft Canada, president Chris Barry proclaimed that “the era of AI is here, ushering in a transformative wave with potential to touch every facet of our lives”, and that “it is not just a technological advancement; it is a societal shift”. https://www.theguardian.com/news/article/2024/aug/08/no-god-in-the-machine-the-pitfalls-of-ai-worship
Sam Altman warns AI could kill us all. But he still wants the world to use it
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/31/tech/sam-altman-ai-risk-taker/index.html
“one of the most disruptive technologies in centuries” - Foreign Affairs
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/artificial-intelligences-threat-democracy
Look at it thus. The first step will be AI surpassing humans at most tasks: doing them more cheaply, and quicker, and noticeably better. This will be when the economic turmoil kicks in, when the jobs start to go, first a trickle then a flood. The next stage will be when AI successfully does tasks in ways we did not expect, but which are remarkable, and deeply impressive: this will hopefully be a good or even wonderful moment, we can expect massive medical advances, perhaps a cure for cancer, perhaps a cure for old age and death. World peace, maybe. Or terrible unexpected weapons, if we don’t catch a break.
AI will eventually be better than us in ways we do not understand
And then, after that, there is a third and potentially final stage, when AI becomes so advanced it does things that only AI, or another AI, can nderstand and for reasons only AI knows (and which, even if AI tried to explain to us, we would not comprehend). AI at this point will have so far outreached us, when we attempt to grasp its doings we will be like dogs trying to understand economics, or like fungi presented with the works of Bach. All we will know is that AI does mighty and incredible works. AI will appear omniscient and ineffable, AI will, in other words, resemble a deity. Moving in mysterious ways, Its wonders to perform.
In recent years, AI development has progressed rapidly. Generative AI—which allows users to generate text, audio, and video—emerged from obscurity with the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022.
”It’s hard to overestimate how surprising these changes will be to everyone except the small community of people who expected powerful AI. “ - Amodei’s Utopia
The Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law overseeing the meeting heard testimonies from three expert witnesses, CEO of prominent AI company Anthropic, said that “the single most important thing to understand about AI is how fast it is moving.”
AI has surpassed humans at a number of tasks and the rate at which humans are being surpassed at new tasks is increasing
AI has surpassed humans at a number of tasks and the rate at which humans are being surpassed at new tasks is increasing
State-of-the-art AI performance on benchmarks, relative to human performance Handwriting recognition Speech recognition Image recognition Reading comprehension Language understanding Common sense completion Grade school math Code generation