Elon Musk has spent his entire career making predictions about the future. Some of these ideas have been implemented – largely thanks to his brilliant team at SpaceX. But for every promise Musk has made a reality through a company like SpaceX, there are many more that the billionaire would probably like to forget.
Musk made some bold predictions about the future of artificial intelligence on Monday. The billionaire tech mogul seems genuinely convinced that artificial general intelligence (AGI), the point at which AI can apply reason and logic in the same way as humans, is just a year or two away.
“If you define AGI as smarter than the smartest person, I think it will probably be the case next year. “Within two years,” Musk said during a conversation with the head of the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund Tuesday.
“But that’s still a pretty big leap beyond that to say it’s smarter than the machine-assisted human collective,” Musk continued. “So is it smarter than everyone working together who also uses computers to improve their performance? And I think it will probably take another five years.”
Ironically, Musk’s talk about X Spaces was cut short due to technical issues, a common occurrence in recent months when Musk attempted to moderate a chat. The idea that we’re on the cusp of AGI while Musk’s social media platform struggles to host a simple audio chat is pretty funny to any outside observer.
Of course, we’ll just have to wait and see if Musk’s prediction on AGI turns out to be correct. But there are many people who don’t believe Musk understands how far we are from developing what most people would call AGI. Gary Marcus, the CEO of Geometric Intelligence, has offered to bet Musk a million dollars that AI won’t actually be “smarter” than humans by the end of 2025. Another CEO followed suit and Offered $10 million.
As Marcus points out, computers have been “smarter” than humans for decades. Therefore, the parameters of what Musk is talking about need to be more clearly defined. Similar to the term “artificial intelligence,” the definition of AGI is still quite unclear. But it makes for very cool-sounding headlines when Musk makes these announcements.
Today we’re taking a look at some of the promises and predictions Musk made that didn’t come true. It’s entirely possible that some of these things will become a reality in the future. But there have been enough failures that it can be instructive to look back and wonder what went wrong — and what motivation Musk might have for hyping technologies long before they’re ready.