Musk predicts AGI can surpass human intelligence next year

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made a bold prediction about the potential emergence of AGI (artificial general intelligence) surpassing human intelligence as soon as next year, provided there are sufficient AI chips and electricity supply to support this development. This marks an acceleration of his earlier projection by four years.

During an interview on X with Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norway's wealth fund, Musk stated, "If you define AGI as smarter than the smartest human, I think it’s probably next year, within two years."

Musk had previously estimated that AGI would be achieved around 2029, but he has revised this timeline significantly earlier. He emphasized the rapid progress of AI technology, noting that "Every week, there is a new AI announcement."

Musk highlighted three main constraints that have historically hindered AI development, which are now beginning to ease. "A shortage of skilled personnel, AI chips, and electricity supply have slowed AI progress. However, the smartest minds in physics are now shifting towards AI research, and supply issues with Nvidia chips, which were a problem last year, are starting to improve. The remaining hurdle is the electricity supply," Musk explained.

Musk specifically cited a shortage of Nvidia chips as a bottleneck for AI development. He noted that 20,000 Nvidia H100 GPU chips are required to train Grok's version 2 model (an AI chatbot unveiled by Musk's xAI startup), and this number will increase to 100,000 for the version 3 model.

The timeline for achieving AGI varies among AI experts due to differing definitions of AGI, which is characterized by its ability to surpass human capabilities. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang suggested that AI could pass human-level tests such as legal bar exams within five years, whereas Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis believes human-level AI will be possible by 2030.


Hyoun-Soo Kim kimhs@donga.com