Musk said that AGI would be possible in five to six years.
At a congressional meeting on Tuesday about the future of AI, experts played down Elon Musk’s claims about how quickly an AGI, or artificial general intelligence, could be made.
The conversation happened during a House Armed Services subcommittee meeting with three experts on AI. The three said making an AGI would take longer than Musk thought.
“When Chairman Mike Gallagher talked to Elon Musk, Musk said that AGI would be ready in five to six years. I didn’t expect that schedule. How long do you think it will be until AGI?” D-Calif. Rep. Ro Khanna asked.
Alexandr Wang, the CEO of Scale AI, said that talking about AGI was a “distraction” from the fundamental goal of learning how to use AI technology best. The other speakers, Dr. Haniyeh Mahmoudian, a Global AI ethicist for DataRobot, and Klon Kitchen, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, were not as optimistic about Musk’s statement.
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Kitchen told Khanna, “I think what we will see is foundation models that are getting more flexible and powerful, or these kinds of generative AI capabilities.” “I would say that the timeline you were given for artificial general intelligence in the next five years is aspirational.”
“It is aspirational,” agreed Mahmoudian. “But I’d add that we’re heading in that way, as we can see with base models… that can give them jobs they weren’t exactly trained for, but can do in a general way.”
Mahmoudian said it was “clearly not” going to take five years to finish AGI.
The meeting was part of the House’s plan to best determine how to use AI in the Pentagon.
The House passed a defense policy bill last week that strongly encourages the Pentagon to use AI to its advantage. The bill also requires defense officials to examine how AI systems used by China, Russia, and other enemies could make America’s national security infrastructure vulnerable.
Rep. Marc Molinaro, R-N.Y., said last week that the DOD needs to catch up. “As a government, we need to move forward in a way that protects the American people, and we know that AI is the next platform that can be used to make weapons.”
