OpenAI Turns Its Focus To Superintelligence To Accelerate Scientific Discovery

OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman shared a personal blog about the company’s future goals, which will entail superintelligence.

Altman did not shy away from confirming that the makers of ChatGPT are experts in designing AI but their new focus is bringing superintelligence into the world. This came with reassurance about using it to improve scientific discovery and create innovative offerings. As a result, it could massively enhance abundance with prosperity.

While it’s not a plan that’s envisioned to come into play anytime soon, he did hint at how we could be thousands of days away from its arrival. Also, the intensity would be a lot, he continued.

While artificial general intelligence or AGI has a fixed definition, the tech giant likes to define it on its own terms and conditions. This includes how autonomous it is in terms of outperforming mankind at cost-effective tasks. Other companies like top investor and software giant Microsoft provide its own definition of AGI which is a system generating profits that go up to $100B.

Let’s not forget to mention that when and if OpenAI does attain this figure, it will restrict access to its tech as per a contract it signed with Microsoft. Now it’s not yet a certain definition the OpenAI CEO referred to in this case but it’s clear what the company’s focus is looking like in the near future.

AI agents are in the pipeline to join the company and carry out specific tasks autonomously. This could drastically alter outputs for some leading firms in the upcoming year.

Altman shared how he continuously believes in putting good tools in the hands of great leaders to ensure incomes get distributed widely. Now experts do see that as a major possibility but we must mention that AI tech in today’s time is very limited. Problems are on the rise such as hallucination, obvious errors, and costly technology.

Sam Altman is confident that all of this will overcome the hurdles and hopefully soon. Again, nothing can be predicted when we think about AI as seen in the past. Timelines could alter to a great extent.

We do believe in the next few years, people will envision our goals and act carefully, Altman explained. The number of possibilities at stake for OpenAI makes it far away from the norms of a regular company. Now the world does feel the statements coming from the CEO are promising but safety is always questionable.

To act responsibly and allocate necessary resources to meet goals while not compromising user safety and privacy is a lot of work. So as you can expect, superintelligence comes with a lot of risk.

We’ve seen the company share on several occasions how it wants a successful transition to superintelligence. But it does know that nothing is guaranteed and nothing comes easy. They’re still in the phase of trying to figure things out. As per the blog, the AI giant has a solution in place to stop things from going wrong.

Ever since this post was published, the company has disbanded teams. These were focused on matters like AI safety such as superintelligent systems. There have been so many leading researchers known for safety-driven designs and visions who left the company. Moreover, many did cite the cause of departure being the overly ambitious goals of the tech giant. This includes current work that entails corporate restructuring to attract greater investors.

Altman is fighting critics who feel the firm doesn’t keep safety as its top agenda. His response is to see the past track record and then decide.

OpenAI aims for superintelligence, promising scientific breakthroughs, but must navigate technical, ethical, and safety challenges.
Image: DIW

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