Tech billionaire Elon Musk, also the owner of X (formerly Twitter), on Wednesday said that artificial intelligence (AI) will likely surpass individual human intelligence by next year. Musk made this prediction in response to a video clip featuring podcaster Joe Rogan and 'futurist' Ray Kurzweil discussing the timeline for AI achieving human-level intelligence.
Musk, who is currently embroiled in a legal dispute with OpenAI, the creator of viral AI chatbot ChatGPT, has asserted AI is poised to surpass the cognitive capabilities of any individual human by 2025. Musk's lawsuit against the company, led by Sam Altman, accuses OpenAI of violating their 'founding agreement' through its collaboration with tech giant Microsoft.
During the conversation, Kurzweil informed Rogan that achieving artificial intelligence at the level of human cognition will materialise by 2029. He said: "We're not quite there yet, but we're on track, and by 2029, it will rival any individual. I'm actually being cautious. Some anticipate it happening as early as next year or the year after."
In response to the video snippet of the conversation on X, Musk commented: "AI will likely surpass the intelligence of any individual human by next year. By 2029, AI will likely be smarter than the collective intelligence of all humans combined."
Meanwhile, earlier this week, the tech billionaire had announced plans about his AI company, xAI, and said that he will open-source "Grok" chatbot which has been designed to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT. Musk stated that Grok will be open-sourced and made available to the public later this week, said a report by news agency Reuters. During a podcast episode featuring Lex Fridman, Musk expressed his appreciation for the concept of open-source AI, the report added. The billionaire's startup had introduced the AI model to a select group of users in November of last year.
It should be noted that since Musk's acquisition of the platform in 2022, he has been striving to transform it into an expansive "everything app," similar to Tencent's dominant WeChat in China.