What becomes possible in a world with superintelligence?
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt coined a name for a belief now widely held inside the big AI labs: the “San Francisco Consensus.”
The idea is simple ->
AI models keep getting better as they get bigger -> they start helping to build the next version -> which leads to stronger AI -> the loop compounds -> in an accelerated timeline we reach superintelligence (== AI that outperforms the best human experts at virtually every kind of thinking work). This is an outlook, not a forecast.
A new Deutsche Bank Research Institute report by Adrian Cox with Azeem Azhar (Exponential View) asks what this might mean for investors and businesses.
Few key highlights that caught my eye ->
-> AI has gotten 13X cheaper every year for three years for the same quality of output (Epoch AI)
-> AI agents can now complete software tasks that would take a human expert ~16 hours (at a 50% success rate). In March 2023, GPT-4 managed four minutes (METR)
-> AI industry revenue (excluding China) grows from under $1bn in 2022 to likely over $200bn this year
-> Businesses are adopting AI 3X faster than they adopted mobile, the internet or cloud computing
The report sees a credible path to superintelligence by 2030, IF bigger models keep delivering better results AND AI learns to speed up its own research.
For me, three things stand out ->
1\ Expertise becomes abundant.
Using the most advanced AI could feel like bringing the best human experts into a room for any problem you face, with today’s top models small enough to run on every phone and laptop.
2\ Building the physical world becomes the frontier.
As thinking work gets cheap, value flows to electricity, land, steel and infrastructure. The biggest tech companies (Alphabet Inc., Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, and others) plan to spend +$1 trillion a year on data centres and equipment through 2030, a build-out that dwarfs the Manhattan Project and Apollo Program.
3\ Adopters compound.
Companies using superintelligence gain real cost and revenue advantages, and leaders pull ahead fast. Every organization gets to choose which group it joins.
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Every leap in capability has created new opportunities, roles and challenges. This one will be no different. The report flags power and permits, trust in AI’s work, pressure on early-career roles.
For me, each one is a design brief. Abundant intelligence + Abundant capital + Human ambition = an expanding possibility space.
So the questions become:
-> What becomes possible when expert thinking can be scaled?
-> How do we build trust into everything AI touches?
-> What new on-ramps will we create for the next generation?
Every era of abundance has rewarded the people who dreamed big. In a world with superintelligence the limit might be our ability to dream BIG.
Until next time,
Ram
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Insights from Deutsche Bank Research Institute -> https://www.dbresearch.com/PROD/IE-PROD/PDFVIEWER.calias?pdfViewerPdfUrl=PROD0000000000654700&rwnode=REPORT
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Ram Srinivasan
MIT Alum | Author, The Conscious Machine | Global Future of Work and AI Adoption Leader published in Business Insider, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, MIT Executive Viewpoints and more.
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Ram Srinivasan currently serves as an Innovation Strategist and Transformation Leader, authoring groundbreaking works including "The Conscious Machine" and the upcoming "The Substrate Shift."
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