Post by SingularityNet

The AI field has picked up steam remarkably in recent times, with exciting new developments announced weekly.
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) at the human level remains a bit out of reach. Modern Large Language Models are incredible, yet they lack autonomy, fundamental creativity, and the capability for complex multi-stage reasoning. Luckily, research aimed at addressing all these weaknesses is energetically underway and backed by significant resources. Various avenues are being explored, including improving and expanding LLMs as well as quite different approaches involving AI methods like symbolic reasoning and evolutionary learning or more realistic biological simulation.
Whichever research approach succeeds at making the next big leap, once we have an AGI with general intelligence at the human level, it probably won’t be much longer before we have Artificial Superintelligence (ASI). But even a human-level AGI will already have the ability to improve its own software and hardware, leading to a rapidly accelerating process of snowballing capability that I.J. Good in 1965 called “The Intelligence Explosion.”
Fears regarding the potential implications of this sort of development are understandable. Although Hollywood exaggerates the dark potentials of advanced AI, in reality, the risks are also very real.
An AGI beyond the human level could lead us into an era of abundance, conquering death, disease, and poverty, removing the need to work for a living and opening up a currently incomprehensible variety of astounding options for humans and other sentient beings. Counterbalancing this, the current economic and control structure of the AI field is not entirely a cause for positive hope. The large corporations and major governments that house the majority of the planet’s applied AI work have their own particular interests in mind, alongside and sometimes contradicting the overall interests of humanity.
So what’s the solution to the uncertainty associated with the exciting and unprecedented position we find ourselves in?
As things opened up after the pandemic and I started going to events again at a more measured pace, I also got a strong reminder of the unique value that comes from gathering together with diverse others in a common space. Gathering in virtual spaces can be fantastic, and keeps getting better as the technology advances, and it can be extremely worthwhile. But at this point, there’s still some powerful, unique value in getting bodies together in a common physical space to share visions, ideas, and reactions in a holistic way.
It was with a bit of trepidation that I decided to put together a conference on Beneficial General Intelligence (BGI). Is this by far the most critical issue facing the human species at this point in time? Absolutely. Any other technology capable of doing good can likely be completed and rolled out faster and better by a Beneficial AGI. Any other technology capable of doing harm can likely be deployed and inflicted more effectively by a NON-beneficial AGI, working under its own direction or that of malevolent or selfish humans.