In 1956, a group of pioneering minds gathered at Dartmouth College to define what we now call artificial intelligence (AI). Even in the early 1990s when colleagues and I were working for early-stage expert systems software companies, the notion that machines could mimic human intelligence was an audacious one. Today, AI drives businesses, automates processes, creates content, and personalizes experiences in every industry. It aids and abets more economic activity than we “ignorant savages” (as one of the founding fathers of AI, Marvin Minsky, referred to our coterie) could have ever imagined. Admittedly, the journey is still early—a journey that may take us from narrow AI to artificial general intelligence (AGI) and ultimately to artificial superintelligence (ASI).
As business and technology leaders, it’s crucial to understand what’s coming: where AI is headed, how far off AGI and ASI might be, and what opportunities and risks lie ahead. To ignore this evolution would be like a factory owner in 1900 dismissing electricity as a passing trend.
Let’s first take stock of where we are. Modern AI is narrow AI —technologies built to handle specific tasks. Whether it’s a large language model (LLM) chatbot responding to customers, algorithms optimizing supply chains, or systems predicting loan defaults, today’s AI excels at isolated functions.
Leave a reply