Will AI achieve human-level intelligence?

Back in 1999, Ray Kurzweil made a bold prediction during an international conference organized at Stanford. In his prediction, he stood that AI will reach the level of human intelligence by 2029.

During the conference, the 150 AI experts were asked: "If and when the attendees thought AI would achieve human-level intelligence.”.

Here were the results:

• 20% felt it would never happen
• 80% felt it?would?happen, but not by 2029
• The majority thought it would take at least 100 years

Last year (2021), experts said that AI will reach human-level intelligence by 2042.

In 2022, another poll stands that AI will reach human-level intelligence by 2030. In line with Kurzweil's 1999 prediction.

On his side, Elon Musk predicts that it will happen sooner, by 2025.

AI will grow “vastly smarter than any human and will overtake us by 2025.”

That doesn’t mean that everything goes to hell in five years. It just means that things get unstable or weird. As Elon said in a recent The New York Times interview.

In May 2022, Google’s DeepMind announced that Gato, its new AI agent, is capable of achieving over 600 tasks “across a wide range of environments.”

Gato uses a single neural network: a computing system with interconnected nodes that works similar to nerve cells in the human brain. It can caption images, chat, stack blocks with a real robot arm, and even play the 1980s video game console Atari.

5 domains in which AI is surpassing human intelligence:

1. Tumors diagnosis (in 2018): AI Research Center for Neurological Disorders scientists and a research team from the Capital Medical University in China fed BioMind with thousands of images of nervous system-related diseases. Across a two-round competition, BioMind correctly?diagnosed 85% of cases in 18 minutes?compared to the group of top neurologists, who achieved only 64% accuracy in 50 minutes.
2. Designs computer chips (in 2021): A suite of algorithms by Google Brain can now design computer chips used for running AI software that vastly outperform those designed by human experts. Using a type of machine learning called deep reinforcement learning, these AI chip designers can work?in a matter of hours, compared to the typical process that can take weeks or even months.
3. Cracks maths puzzles that have stumped humans for decades (in 2021): DeepMind engineered an algorithm to address two long-standing puzzles in mathematics: the theory of knots and the study of symmetries. It was able to look across different mathematical fields and spot connections that previously escaped the human mind.
4. Beats 8 world champions bridge players (in 2022): Bridge is a game of communication and strategy that has long resisted domination by AI. Until now. NooK, a bridge-playing AI outplayed 8 bridge world champions in a competition held in Paris. NooK is a kind of hybrid algorithm, combining symbolic (rule-based) AI with today’s dominant deep learning approach.?In 80 sets against its human rivals, NooK won 67 times (83%).?
5. Protein-designing AI imagines medicines humans couldn’t dream up (in 2022): A team of scientists at the University of Washington used a deep learning algorithm to not only predict the general area of a protein’s functional site but then sculpt the structure. The team used the new software to generate drugs that battle cancer and design vaccines against common, if sometimes deadly, viruses. “Deep learning transformed protein structure prediction in the past two years, we are now in the midst of a similar transformation of protein design”, said Dr. David Baker, the lead scientist in the study.

As many fear the rise of AI as a deadly treat for humankind as portrayed in dystopian sci-fi movies such as Terminator or The Matrix. We should see the continuous progress of the technology as a collaborator.

We, humans, have demonstrated a remarkable ability to incorporate technological aids into new opportunities for growth. History paints a clear picture of this.

AI is no different.