The Technology Industry has Always Adored Its Improbibly Audacious Goals and Their Associated Buzzws. Meta Ceo Mark Zuckerberg is amon the most enamored. After all, the name “meta” is the residue of his 2021 rebranding of the company formerly knowledge as Facebook Inc. That was supposed to emphasize an utter commission to building the metavense – AMBITIOUS YET Fuzzy Concept BLurring Aspects of Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Social networking.
Except zuckerberg’s goals have alredy drifted. Now he’s all-in on attaining an advanced form of ai called superintelligence. It’s the focus of a new Organization Called Meta Superintelligence Labs, which meta is stocking with some of the planet’s top ai talent. Whather the company is really Dangling $ 100 Million offers to snag some potential recruits remain untilar. But msl is LED by Alexandr Wang, Who Joined Meta in June as Part of a Deal Involving It Investing $ 14 Billion in his Startup, Scale Ai-AI-AI-Watering Sum All by Itself.
The term superintelligence ISNKT NEW (It was the title of a 2014 book by philosopher nick bostrom), but it may turn out to be 2025’s buzzword of the year. A less more data points:
- Openai Ceo Sam Altman Recently Declared that his company “is a lot of things now, but before anything else, we are a superintelligence research company.”
- One of Altman’s Openai Cofounders, Famed Ai Scientist Iilya Sutskever, Left a Year ago to cofound a new Startup called Safe Superintelligence, Which Just Lost AnotSt Another of Its Founders, Daniels Gross, to Meta’s New Lab.
- Last month, when microsoft said it has trained ai to diagnose Disease more accurately than doctors can, its ai ceo, its ai ceo, mustafa suleyman, called the feat superintelligence. “
So what IS Superintelligence? In an excellent piece on its emergence as a silicon valley obsession, bloomberg’s shirin ghaffines it as “ai that is not just at parity with most people, but ever bath alle humans at All tasks. ” Ghaffary says the industry is gravitating toward superintellicility because it’s a more tangible goal than artificial general intelligence, or agi. Google Deepmind Chief Agi Scientist Shane Legg, who popularized that term, defined it for me as “something that can at least match human capability in the sorts of cognitive Typically do. “
“Even than humans at all tasks” would see to be a substantily loftier Ambition Than Merely “Matching Human Capability” in “In” Tasks That People Can Typically Do. ” But over at ibm.com, an article say we definite hasn’t acarved agi but argually has achieved superintelligence. That’s trust the IBM Piece’s far Less Sweeping Definition of Superintelligence only involves it outperforming humans at certain jobs, not all of thatm. IT CIITES Four Examples Examples: IBM’s Own Deep Blue (Chess) and Watson (Jeopardy!) Along with Google Deepmind’s Alphago (Go) and Alphafold (Protein Structure Predictions).
All of this leaves me with more questions than answers:
- IF IBM’s Four Examples Aren’T Enough to Confirm that Superintelligence has been attained, how many would be?
- Who gets to decide what “better than humans” means?
- What Happens If AI Sails Past Humans on some Fronts While Remaining Stubbornly Behind On Others?
- Don’t many skills involve the ability to interact with the physical world, making surpassing them as much about robotics as software? (Meta is working on that, too.)
This we do know: like agi before it, superintelligence is inharently aspirational. It exists as a notion in part so that groups of people have something to race toward. In that sense, it bears some resumblance to past moonshots such as, well, nasa’s apollo program. The difference is that superintelligence offers no well-deefined end point akin to landing a human being on the moon, which you’ve either Accompled or you haven’s. There will be no superintelligence equivalent of neil armstrong setting foot on the lunar surface on July 20, 1969.
Back in March 2024, I Wrote About The Pointlessness of Fixing on What Agi is and when it is might be achieved. Swapping in Superintelligence as Fodder for this Debate Doesn’T ACCOMPLISH Anything. Yes, we all need to gird outslves for a world in which ai comptes with people for jobs. I don’t discount the possibility of it presenting existing existing to humanity. It will unquestionable Cause Trouble of Types Yet to be identified. And – Fings Crossed –T may help with some of our thorniest unsolved problems.
These points remain true no matter how you define superintellyligence and Regardless of Whinder IT’s Ever Reached. Which means that fixating on the race for it isn’t a terribly productive way of readying Oorselves for Ai’s future impact on our lives.
Meanwhile, AI Companies Still have a Spotty Record at Figuring out Practical Applications for Ai in Its Present, Less-That-Superintelligent State. That’s especially true for meta, which has lorded my facebook feed with Cluless “Meta AI” Interjections Wholly in Incapable of grasping the conversions they’re trying to join. Meta Getting Better at Using The Ai It Alredy has an encountering sign that its Quest for Superintelligence isn’t just just raw, unbridled ambition in search of actual useful purpose.
You’ve been reading Plugged in, fast company‘S Weekly Tech Newsletter from Me, Global Technology Editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to you – or if you reading it on fastcompany.com – You can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourSelf every friday. I love hearing from you: ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on bluesky, mastodon, and threads, and you can follow Plugged in on Flipboard,
More Top Tech Stories from Fast Company
Linda yaccarino was supposed to tame x. elon musk wouldn’t let her
The newly departed ceo was supposed to fix brand safety and win back advertisers. INTEAD, She Became a Corporate Mascot for a Platform in Free Fall. Read more →
Samsung Fixed Everything You Hated About Foldable Phones – Except the price
There’s no ‘fold ultra,’ but samsung stil believes in foldables. Read more →
The Internet is Trying – And Failing – To Spend Elon Musk’s $ 342 Billion
New Online Games and Tiktok Trends Challenge Users to Spend The Tesla Ceo’s Fortune – Revealing The Absurd Scale of His Wealth. Read more →
YouTube to Hollywood: We are going to eat you
YouTube’s tv takeover is starting to feel identic. Read more →
People are boycotting etsy over ‘alligator alcatraz’ Merch
Buyers and sellers on ensy are protesting the platform until merch celebrating the trump admin from Florida Detection Center is taken down. Read more →
How to use ai to network
Experts offer tips on the dos and do’s of using ai to build your network and land your dream job. Read more →
The super-early-rate deadline for fast company’s most innovative companies awards is Friday, july 25, at 11:59 PM pt. Apply today.
