Masayoshi Son, renowned CEO of SoftBank, expressed his belief that the emergence of artificial general intelligence (AGI) which surpasses human intelligence in most fields is expected within the coming decade. He shared these predictions while addressing delegates at the esteemed SoftBank World corporate conference.
Son’s vision of AGI portrays it tenfold more advanced than the collective human intelligence, striking a chord at the heart of various scientific domains. His address spotlighted the recent AI developments, asserting that generative AI has already begun surpassing humans in diverse areas.
“A broadly held misconception is that AI, given its creation by humans, can never surpass us in intellect,” Son retorted. “However, it’s essential to understand that AI’s boundaries extend far beyond; it’s now self-learning, self-training, and self inferencing, much like human beings.”
Son, a long-time proponent of AGI’s potential influence often referring to the concept as “singularity”, provided a timeline for AGI’s development for the first time. Furthermore, he intriguingly introduced a futuristic concept of “Artificial Super Intelligence”. His predictions venture that this new form of AI, coming in the subsequent two decades, would surpass human intelligence by a factor of 10,000.
Son’s reputation echoes on his knack for strategic bets, some of which accessorized SoftBank’s stature in the tech investment battleground while others that spectacularly floundered. Notably, while his dictums concerning the mobile internet have been validated over time, the ones about the Internet of Things have fallen short.
Also passionate about his country’s digital potential, Son urged Japanese enterprises to harness the power of AI, reemphasizing that they have persistently lagged behind in the dawn of the internet era. He underscored the pivotal role of Arm, the chip designer, in the AI revolution, and reasserted his faith in its capabilities.
Echoing Son’s sentiments, Arm’s CEO, Rene Haas, extolled the energy efficiency of Arm’s designs and their desired role in powering artificial intelligence during a video address at the conference.
Asserting his solitary belief that AGI’s advent is within a decade, Son challenged Rene Haas’ opinion of AGI’s emergence within his lifetime.
