A surprising prediction has been announced. Leopold Aschenbrenner, a former researcher at OpenAI, claims that AGI, which matches the capabilities of human experts in various fields, will emerge in 2027, just four years from now. It’s hard to believe, but let’s take a look at his argument.

1.From the Past to the Present, and into the Future

To predict the future, it is important to understand how generative AI has developed from the past to the present. Here, the author introduces the concept of OOM (Orders of Magnitude). Simply put, if you create a graph where each unit increase represents a tenfold increase, the trajectory becomes a straight line. OOM=4 means 10,000 times. The vertical axis of this graph represents the computational power (physical computation and algorithmic efficiency) and is displayed in OOM. The current pinnacle of AI, GPT-4, is used as the benchmark.

GPT-2 appeared in 2019, and four years later, in 2023, GPT-4 was introduced. The performance improvement during this period is roughly OOM=5 (100,000 times). If GPT-2 is like a preschooler, then GPT-4 is like a smart high schooler. Now, if we extend this straight line from 2023 to 2027, we can predict that an AI with OOM=5 (100,000 times) higher performance than GPT-4 will be born. This level of AI is expected to achieve AGI. If it is reasonable to connect the points with a straight line, then this prediction is not entirely far-fetched.

2. From Which Fields Will AI Growth Emerge?

We have explained that AI will significantly improve its performance by 2027, but what technological innovations will make this possible? The author points to the following three drivers. This graph also has a vertical axis in OOM, so a one-unit increase means tenfold.

First, the blue part represents improvements in computational resource efficiency. This is achieved through the development of new GPUs and the construction of ultra-large GPU clusters.

The second green part is due to improvements in training and inference algorithms and training data. There are concerns that training data may become scarce in the near future, but it is expected that this can be overcome by generating synthetic data.

The third red part refers to advancements in technology that allow us to extract the necessary information from the raw AI, give precise instructions, and have the AI execute what we want. Even now, research on how to give instructions to AI, such as Chain of Thought, is actively being conducted. In the future, it is expected that AI will function as an agent and further develop, leading to significant performance improvements in AI.

Wow, that sounds amazing.

3. What Happens After AGI is Achieved?

Once AGI is achieved, the evolution of AI will move to the next phase. Here, the main players are no longer humans but countless AIs. These AIs are trained for AI development and can work continuously 24/7. Therefore, by taking over AI development from humans, productivity will dramatically increase, and as a result, it is predicted that Super Intelligence, which completely surpasses humans, will be born by 2030. The graph below illustrates this.

It was already challenging to understand the prediction of AGI appearing in 2027, but by this point, it’s honestly beyond imagination to think about what our society will look like. Work, education, taxation, healthcare, and even national security will likely look completely different. We can only hope that AI will be a bright star of hope for all humanity.

Let’s conclude with the author’s words. It will be exciting to see if AGI is truly realized by 2027. The original paper is a massive 160 pages, but it’s worth reading. You can access it from the link below, so please give it a try.

Again, critically, don’t just imagine an incredibly smart ChatGPT: unhobbling gains should mean that this looks more like a drop-in remote worker, an incredibly smart agent that can reason and plan and error-correct and knows everything about you and your company and can work on a problem indepen-dently for weeks. We are on course for AGI by 2027. These AI systems will basically be able to automate basically all cognitive jobs (think: all jobs that could be done remotely).

1) SITUATIONAL AWARENESS　The Decade Ahead, Leopold Aschenbrenner, June 2024, situational-awareness.ai　

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