When OpenAI kicked Sam Altman to the curb, Ilya Sutskever delivered the news.
Buried beneath the headlines was an overlooked piece of news — Sam Altman confirmed OpenAI’s work on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
AGI has always been a fantasy, something we plug into Hollywood sci-fi movies.
It’s intelligence that borders the edges of consciousness, sentience, and all those fun questions we’ve never bothered to answer.
But if it’s truly possible to see AGI in our lifetimes, we could witness one of the most significant developments in human history.
Source: DALL-E
That’s not hyperbole.
AGI split Sam Altman and Ilya Sutskever down the middle.
One said we can handle any challenges that arise. The other believes we’re heading into a disaster.
Which side of the debate are you on?
Your answer will dictate how to invest over the next decade.
AGI: Fact or Fiction?
Sam and Ilya, the two founders of OpenAI, have a major disagreement.
Sam doesn’t believe we should slow down our rapid development of AI. He thinks AGI isn’t a specific point. We achieve it incrementally, giving us time to fix any issues.
In a documentary with The Guardian, Ilya said AI will cure many of today’s ills: unemployment, hunger, poverty, and disease.
However, each achievement would create new problems: cyberattacks, no source of truth, automated weapons.
But they both agree we’re moving towards AGI faster than anyone thought possible.
As Ilya put it:
“We definitely will be able to create completely autonomous beings with their own goals.”
Does that put us immediately in danger of Skynet or the Matrix?
That’s pretty unlikely.
Current AI models, though fantastic, leave a lot on the table.
They provide the wrong information, fail to follow straightforward instructions, and can worsen over time.
This quote from Ilya summarizes the situation nicely:
“There is some probability the AGI is going to happen pretty soon, there’s also some probability it’s going to take much longer. But my position is that the probability that AGI could happen soon is high enough that we should take it seriously.”
The likelihood of AGI is small. But its potential impact is so massive we have to plan for the possibility.
So, where does that leave us?
Could the Fed Change the Playing Field?
AI has already changed the way we work.
Everyday people can now create programming code, develop incredible graphics, and even develop richer content.
But we’ll need more money at an exponential rate to keep going.
That could change if the Fed alters its rate policy.
You’re not imagining things if you think tech startups have evaporated.
Higher rates forced venture capital to choose their investments more wisely.
If and when the Fed cuts rates, we’ll see money start to flow back into these startups.
Right now, hundreds of non-public companies continue to pop up with niche services.
However, it takes tens of millions to acquire the skills and hardware necessary to build your own large language models.
Currently, the number of people capable of developing these programs is limited to thousands worldwide.
The Biggest Roadblock
When Ilya Sutskever says it’s possible to achieve AGI in the next several years, he’s assuming technology that doesn’t exist.
AI models require enormous computer resources.
But that could change if we crack the quantum computing problem.
In a nutshell, quantum computers can perform the same calculation in parallel an exponential number of times, a key to how AI works.
A successful commercial quantum processor could perform in a minute what it takes an entire floor of computers to do right now in a month.
The problem is quantum processors are unstable.
They require near absolute zero temperatures to work and, even then, are constrained.
However, there’s a revolutionary technology that could finally take this technology from fiction to fact.
As George Gilder explains in his latest report, graphene, a wondrous material with numerous applications, has become commercially viable.
This atom-thick lattice is an incredible conductor of heat and electricity, making it ideal for precise control and manipulation of qubits (data for quantum computers).
Think of it this way.
Quantum computers screw up once you introduce heat.
Graphene conducts electricity better, reducing the heat output.
Less heat equals fewer problems.
Yet, this just scratches the surface of what this material is capable of.
With applications from the automotive industry to material sciences, a bet on graphene gives you multiple ways to win, not just AI or quantum computing.
There’s so much more to tell you.
But we’d rather let our tech expert George Gilder give you the details.
