**The Intelligence Age**
**Author: Sam Altman**
**Translation: Academic Jun, Academic Headlines**
**[Editor’s Note]** Currently, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is the goal that many companies with large models both domestically and internationally are competing to achieve. This hypothetical technology can match human intelligence in performing various tasks without requiring specialized training. In contrast, superintelligence surpasses AGI, representing a hypothetical level of machine intelligence that can significantly exceed human capabilities in any intellectual task.
In a personal blog post titled “The Intelligence Age,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman outlined his vision for AI-driven technological advancements and global prosperity. The article depicts a scenario where AI accelerates human progress, with Altman suggesting that “superintelligence” may emerge within the next few thousand days. He wrote, “It is possible that we could have superintelligence (ASI) in just a few thousand days (!); it may take longer, but I believe we will get there.”
He believes that AI models will soon become autonomous personal assistants, performing specific tasks on our behalf, such as coordinating healthcare services. One day in the future, AI systems will become so proficient that they will help us create better next-generation systems and achieve comprehensive progress in science. He attributes the next leap in human societal prosperity to deep learning, writing: “Deep learning is working, and as it scales, it is expected to work even better, and we are investing more and more resources into it.”
Altman asserts that if we want as many people as possible to harness AI, we must lower computational costs and make it abundant (which requires substantial energy and chips). If we do not build sufficient infrastructure, AI will become a highly limited resource, leading people to fight over it, and it will primarily serve as a tool for the wealthy.
Of course, no one can truly predict the future of AI. Despite facing criticism, as the CEO of OpenAI, Altman may have seen AI advancements that are not widely known to the public. Thus, even when providing a relatively broad timeframe, his statement garners attention.
In fact, not everyone shares Altman’s optimism and enthusiasm. Computer scientist Grady Booch wrote on X: “I am very tired of all the AI hype: it has no basis in reality, serves only to inflate valuations, incite the public, grab headlines, and distract from the real work being done in the field of computing.”
“Humans have an innate desire to create and collaborate, and AI will amplify our capabilities like never before,” Altman wrote in the article. “Many of the tasks we do today would have seemed trivial wastes of time to people hundreds of years ago, yet no one looking back would wish to have been a lamplighter.”
Academic Headlines provided a simple translation without altering the original meaning. The content is as follows:
**The Intelligence Age**
In the coming decades, we will be able to do things that would seem magical to our ancestors. This phenomenon has not just emerged but will accelerate in development. Over time, human capabilities have significantly increased; we are now able to accomplish tasks that past generations deemed impossible.
Our increased capabilities are not due to genetic changes but because we benefit from societal infrastructure that is smarter and more capable than any individual. In a significant sense, society itself is a form of advanced intelligence. Our ancestors—and their predecessors—created and achieved great things. They contributed to human progress, from which we all benefit. AI will provide humanity with tools to address difficult problems, helping us add new pillars to our scaffolding that we cannot resolve on our own. The story of progress will continue, and our descendants will accomplish things we cannot.
This will not happen overnight, but we will soon be able to collaborate with AI, which will help us accomplish more work than without it. Ultimately, each of us could have a personal AI team composed of virtual experts from different fields, collaboratively creating nearly anything we can imagine. Our children will have virtual tutors who can provide personalized instruction in any subject at any speed and in any language. We can envision similar ideas improving healthcare, creating any software imaginable, and more.
With these new capabilities, we can achieve a shared prosperity that seems difficult to imagine today; in the future, everyone’s life will be better than it is now. Prosperity itself does not necessarily lead to happiness—there are many miserable wealthy individuals—but it will significantly improve the lives of people worldwide.
We can view human history from a narrow perspective: after thousands of years of scientific discovery and technological advancement, we have learned how to melt sand, add some impurities, and arrange it into computer chips with astonishing precision at a minuscule scale, through which energy runs, ultimately forming increasingly powerful AI systems.
This may be the most important fact in all of history to date. It is possible that we could have superintelligence in just a few thousand days (!); it may take longer, but I believe we will reach this goal.
How do we achieve the next leap in prosperity? Three words: deep learning works.
In 15 words: Deep learning works, and as it scales, it is expected to work better, and we are investing more resources into it.
That’s it; humanity has discovered an algorithm that can genuinely learn any data distribution (or, in other words, generate the fundamental “rules” of any data distribution). To a shocking degree, the more available computation and data there are, the more it can help people solve tough problems. I find that no matter how much time I spend thinking about this problem, I cannot truly grasp how important it is.
We still have many details to address, but being bogged down by any specific challenge is mistaken. Deep learning is effective, and we will resolve the remaining issues. We can say a lot about what might happen next, but the main point is that AI will get better as it scales, leading to meaningful improvements in the lives of people worldwide.
AI models will soon become autonomous personal assistants, performing specific tasks on our behalf, such as coordinating healthcare services. One day in the future, AI systems will become so outstanding that they will help us create better next-generation systems and achieve comprehensive progress in science.
Technology has brought us from the Stone Age to the Agricultural Age, then to the Industrial Age. From here, the road to the Intelligence Age is paved by computation, energy, and human will.
If we want as many people as possible to harness AI, we must lower computational costs and make it abundant (which requires substantial energy and chips). If we do not build sufficient infrastructure, AI will become a highly limited resource, leading people to fight over it, and it will primarily serve as a tool for the wealthy.
We need to act wisely and resolutely. The arrival of the Intelligence Age is a significant development, facing complex and extremely severe challenges. This will not be a wholly positive story, but its positive significance is so vast that we have a responsibility to devise ways to address the risks before us for ourselves and future generations.
I believe the future will be so bright that no one can describe it now; a notable feature of the Intelligence Age will be widespread prosperity.
Although all of this will occur gradually, astonishing victories—restoring the climate, establishing space colonies, and discovering all of physics—will ultimately become commonplace. With near-infinite wisdom and abundant energy—the capacity to generate great ideas and realize them—we can achieve many things.
As we have seen with other technologies, AI will also have drawbacks, and we need to start working now to maximize its advantages while minimizing its harms. For instance, we expect this technology to bring significant changes to the labor market in the coming years (both good and bad), but the changes in most job positions will likely occur slower than most people imagine, and I am not worried that we will find ourselves without work (even if those jobs do not seem like “real work” today). Humans have an innate desire to create and collaborate, and AI will amplify our abilities like never before. As a society, we will return to an ever-expanding world where we can once again focus on playing positive-sum games.
Many of the tasks we do today would have seemed trivial wastes of time to people hundreds of years ago, yet no one looking back would wish to have been a lamplighter. If a lamplighter could see today’s world, he would find the surrounding prosperity unimaginable. If we could fast forward a hundred years from today, the scenes of prosperity around us would also seem unimaginable.
**Original Link:**
Sam Altman: “The Intelligence Age”
**Translation:**
Academic Headlines: “Sam Altman’s Latest Article: In a Few Thousand Days, Humanity Will Enter the Intelligence Age”
