The god in the machine

Who's trying to build superintelligent AI?

Companies such as Google, OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic have collectively dedicated more than $1 trillion to developing artificial general intelligence (AGI). That's shorthand for a future technology that can do almost anything a human can: drive, talk, learn, solve problems, create, and so on. For now, most AI models excel at one or two tasks, such as generating text and images, or solving mathematical equations. But the ability of these systems to take in and process data has expanded at lightning speed, with the number of parameters inside models—connections analogous to synapses in the brain—going from millions to billions to more than a trillion in a few years. Many industry experts believe it's only a matter of time before a system reaches AGI, or even artificial super intelligence (ASI): a form of AI that surpasses human intelligence in every way and can make its own decisions. Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, argues the arrival of AGI will usher in "an era of maximum human flourishing" in which disease and poverty will be vanquished and space will be colonized. Other experts are less optimistic: Daniel Kokotajlo, a former OpenAI researcher who refused to sign a non-disparagement agreement when he resigned from the company in April, foresees "something like a 70% chance" that AI will catastrophically harm—or even wipe out—humanity.