Any company such as OpenAI, heading for a loss of $5bn last year on $3.7bn of revenue, needs a good story to tell to keep the funding flowing. And stories don’t come much more compelling than saying your company is on the cusp of transforming the world and creating a “glorious future” by developing artificial general intelligence.
Definitions vary about what AGI means, given that it represents a theoretical rather than a technological threshold. But most AI researchers would say it is the point at which machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence across most cognitive fields. Attaining AGI is the industry’s holy grail and the explicit mission of companies such as OpenAI and Google DeepMind, even though some holdouts still doubt it will ever be achieved.
Most predictions of when we might reach AGI have been drawing nearer due to the striking progress in the industry. Even so, Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, startled many on Monday when he posted on his blog: “We are now confident we know how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood it.” The company, which triggered the latest investment frenzy in AI after launching its ChatGPT chatbot in November 2022, was valued at $150bn in October. ChatGPT now has more than 300mn weekly users.