Sam Altman Says AGI in 2025
"The equivalent of a median human you could hire as a coworker"? "Learning how to go be a doctor, learning how to be a very competent coder"? "The meta skill of learning to figure things out"?
Yesterday (1/6/2025) Sam Altman said they are confident they “know how to build AGI” and that in 2025 we may see the “first AGI agents ‘join the workforce.’”
This reminds me of a clip from a conversation with Altman at Greylock partners where he defines AGI as
"The equivalent of a median human you could hire as a coworker”
”They’d be able to do anything you’d be happy with, just behind a computer”
”Includes…learning how to be a doctor, learning how to be a very competent coder”
”Not a particular milestone…A meta skill of learning things out, and that it can go and get good at whatever you need.”
Similarly, Open AI’s Charter defines AGI as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work.”
Microsoft and OpenAI have agreed on a definition — $100 billion in profits.
In his post, Altman highlights this will “materially change the output of companies.” This is similar to what Stanford economist Erik Brynjolfsson has called “artificial transformative intelligence,” focusing the AGI test on the impact it will have on the economy instead of having a more difficult debate as to what “intelligence” is and whether or not machines achieve it.
When does Erik Brynjolfsson think we will have ATI? He suggests around 2030, which is the same time frame Altman has previously suggested for starting to see a sizable economic impact on the economy.
It seems that we at least have in the ballpark of what Mustafa Suleyman has described as “artificial capable intelligence (ACI).” In August 2023, he said this would take 3-5 years.
If these at least somewhat capable agents start to move into industry in 2025, it’s obviously possible that they could have a significant impact by 2030.
As I discussed in yesterday’s post, it will take a while for society to absorb and adopt this technology, so a large immediate impact will not be felt. But, even short of AGI and its adoption, we there will be impacts, as AGI is not needed to replace many workers. We are already seeing impacts on translators and other freelance workers.
In December, my older sold graduated from college. He has a job. I told him he’s lucky and that he should try to keep it.
In August, my younger son will head off to college. He will graduate into a world where the economy has been heavily impacted by AI. I encouraged him, as much as the parent of a teenager can do, to apply and hopefully enrol in universities that will prepare him for that world.
An AGI world of “radical abundance” is, at best, an uncertainty.
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Many will criticize Altman’s post as “hype” and not “actual AGI,” at least based on some definitions that focus on sentience and consciousness.
But regardless of whether we want to add a discount for “hype” and our own definitions of AGI, AI is going to dramatically impact the economy. It already is.
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One of the most influential people in AI, Allie Miller, added this today —
