AI Impacts
In plain wordsA small research project that studies how and when human-level artificial intelligence might arrive, best known for large surveys asking AI researchers to predict their field's future.
A small research effort that compiles evidence and arguments about when human-level AI might arrive and what would follow. Its Expert Surveys on Progress in AI (2016, 2022 and 2023), among the largest of their kind, asked authors of papers at leading machine learning conferences when high-level machine intelligencehigh-level machine intelligence, n.: A yardstick used in surveys of AI researchers: the point at which machines on their own could outdo human workers at every task, in both quality and cost. and the full automation of labor would arrive and how likely extremely bad outcomes were. The 2023 survey of about 2,800 researchers gave an aggregate 50 percent chance of high-level machine intelligence by 2047, thirteen years earlier than the 2022 estimate, and a median 5 percent probability of outcomes as bad as human extinction. Its case studies of historical discontinuities in technological progress informed the debate over takeofftakeoff, n.: The stretch of time between AI reaching roughly human level and AI becoming vastly superhuman. People argue over whether it would take decades, years, months or just days. speeds. The surveys are widely cited in AI timelinesAI timelines, n.: Forecasts of when AI will reach major milestones, such as matching humans at most work. People with short timelines expect this within years; others expect decades, or never. debates and criticized for their sensitivity to question wording.
Origin
Begun in 2014 by Katja Grace, its lead researcher, and Paul Christiano, and long hosted by the Machine Intelligence Research InstituteMachine Intelligence Research Institute, prop. n.: A small nonprofit in Berkeley, California, among the first to warn that smarter-than-human AI could destroy humanity, which now campaigns for a worldwide halt to building it. in Berkeley, California.
Related
- AI timelinesAI timelines, n.: Forecasts of when AI will reach major milestones, such as matching humans at most work. People with short timelines expect this within years; others expect decades, or never.
- high-level machine intelligencehigh-level machine intelligence, n.: A yardstick used in surveys of AI researchers: the point at which machines on their own could outdo human workers at every task, in both quality and cost.
- takeofftakeoff, n.: The stretch of time between AI reaching roughly human level and AI becoming vastly superhuman. People argue over whether it would take decades, years, months or just days.
- p(doom)p(doom), n.: Shorthand for someone's personal estimate of the chance that AI leads to catastrophe for humanity, such as extinction. People give it as a percentage, from nearly zero to nearly certain.
- Epoch AIEpoch AI, prop. n.: A research nonprofit that gathers data on how fast AI is advancing — the computing power, data and money behind it — and publishes forecasts and difficult tests for AI.
- Machine Intelligence Research InstituteMachine Intelligence Research Institute, prop. n.: A small nonprofit in Berkeley, California, among the first to warn that smarter-than-human AI could destroy humanity, which now campaigns for a worldwide halt to building it.
Sources
- Grace, K., Salvatier, J., Dafoe, A., Zhang, B. & Evans, O. (2018). When Will AI Exceed Human Performance? Evidence from AI Experts. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research 62.
- Grace, K. et al. (2024). Thousands of AI Authors on the Future of AI. arXiv.