What is ASI? Superintelligence, AGI and the future of research
The idea of intelligence far beyond humans
ASI stands for artificial superintelligence: the idea of AI far exceeding human capabilities across a broad range of intellectual activities. AGI emphasizes generality, while ASI places particular emphasis on performance beyond human levels.
One exceptional skill does not establish ASI
Beating humans at one game or calculation differs from broadly exceeding them in research, planning and invention. Fast text generation alone is not evidence of superintelligence. Look at the fields tested and the abilities actually demonstrated.
Producing answers and checking them
Evaluating AI that is more capable than people is a research problem. OpenAI’s 2023 Introducing Superalignment article describes the difficulty of humans supervising systems smarter than themselves. It is a statement of a research challenge, not evidence that the challenge has been solved.
What to check in the news
- Does it exceed human experts across a broad range of fields?
- Can its answers be checked through methods or experiments?
- Is this a research proposal or a demonstrated result?
An imagined future starts here
Imagine AI proposing battery materials, laboratory robots testing them, and results feeding back into the next design. A faster cycle could let researchers explore more ideas than they could test in a lifetime. A small research team might then make a discovery that changes a city’s energy supply or transport.
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