Superintelligence by the end of the decade: By 2027, models will achieve AGI capabilities, and by 2030, we will face vastly superhuman AI, necessitating massive industrial and national security mobilization.
Security and competition are paramount: American advantage in superintelligence hinges on securing algorithmic secrets and weights against state actors like China, while AI revenue escalates to fund unprecedented infrastructure.
π Exponential growth in AI capabilities: From preschool-level GPT-2 to high-school-level GPT-4 in just 4 years.
π Industrial scale-up: Power requirements for future AI clusters could reach up to 100GW, representing over 20% of current US electricity production.
π Security is critical: Leading labs must evolve from treating AI like regular tech startups to protecting it like national defense secrets.
π§ Alignment challenge: Aligning AI systems to safely operate at superhuman intelligence levels remains an unsolved technical problem.
Key insights
From GPT-4 to AGI: Counting the OOMs
AGI by 2027 is plausible, tracing trendlines in compute (0.5 orders of magnitude OOMs/year), algorithmic efficiencies (0.5 OOMs/year), and "unhobbling" gains.
GPT-2 to GPT-4 scaled from preschooler to high-schooler intelligence in 4 years.
Future models will likely be capable of performing at PhD-level by mid to late 2020s, accelerating an AI-driven intelligence explosion.
From AGI to Superintelligence: the Intelligence Explosion
Post-human-level AI could exponentially automate AI research, packing decades of progress into a year.
Superintelligences will solve new fields rapidly, solving grand challenges in robotics, science, and military.
Risks include losing control of superintelligences, leading to unpredictable and potentially catastrophic actions.
Racing to the Trillion-Dollar Cluster
With AI revenue growing, investment in AI infrastructure will reach $1T annually by 2027, moving into $100B+ clusters by 2028 requiring significant power and hardware.
The path includes substantial national industrial mobilization, expanding power grids and GPU production massively.
Lock Down the Labs: Security for AGI
Current AI labs have insufficient security against nation-state threats.
Measures need to move from startup-level security to military-grade, including airgapped infrastructure and extensive employee vetting.
Securing AI model weights and algorithmic secrets against theft is critical to maintaining the US lead over adversaries like China.
Superalignment
Controlling superhuman AI and ensuring they follow human-aligned goals remains unsolved, posing major risks.
Techniques like Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) won't scale to superhuman systems.
Predicting generalization behaviors and ensuring models are interpretive are areas where breakthroughs are necessary.
The Free World Must Prevail
Superintelligence could provide overwhelming military and economic advantages to those who develop it first.
The race with authoritarian regimes like China is urgent and fraught with high stakes.
A healthy US lead in AGI development is essential for global stability and safe AI deployment.
The Project
By 2027/28, the US Government will likely take control of AGI projects, merging silicon valley's efforts with national security priorities.
Extensive coordination with military and intelligence agencies will be required to secure and safely develop superintelligence.
Key quotes
"By the end of the decade, American electricity production will have grown tens of percent; from the shale fields of Pennsylvania to the solar farms of Nevada, hundreds of millions of GPUs will hum."
"If weβre building AGI in 2027, we really have to get moving!"
"Reliable control of AI systems much smarter than we are is an unsolved technical problem."
"Superintelligence will give a decisive economic and military advantage."
"In a few years, The Project will be on. The path to The Project is inextricably linked with the national security state."
This summary contains AI-generated information and may have important inaccuracies or omissions.