Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, one of the largest tech companies in China, stated that an artificial intelligence that surpasses human intelligence is more than a decade away.
TakeAway Points:
- Robin Li, the CEO of Baidu, one of China’s largest technology companies, stated that artificial intelligence (AGI) that is smarter than humans is more than ten years away.
- Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated this year that AGI would probably be available by 2026.
- In January, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated that artificial general intelligence (AGI) could be developed in the “reasonably close-ish future.”
Super Power AI Predicted
Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, one of the largest tech companies in China, stated that an artificial intelligence that surpasses human intelligence is more than a decade away, despite industry veteran Elon Musk’s forecast that it would happen very soon.
AI that is on par with or more intelligent than humans is referred to as artificial general intelligence, or AGI.
Meanwhile, according to Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, artificial intelligence will probably be accessible by 2026. AGI research may begin in the “reasonably close-ish future,” according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s January statement.
Li, whose business, Baidu, is among the top AI companies in China, indicates that this is not possible.
“AGI is still quite a few years away. Today, a lot of people talk about AGI, and they’re saying, It’s probably two years away; it’s probably, you know, five years away. I think [it] is more than 10 years away,” Li said during a talk on Wednesday at the VivaTech conference in Paris.
“By definition, AGI means that a computer or AI can be as smart as a human, right? Or sometimes, smarter. But we would want an AI to be as smart as a human. And today’s most powerful models are far from that. And how do you achieve that level of intelligence? We don’t know.”
Demand For Faster AI Development
Li demanded that AI research proceed at a quicker rate.
″My fear is that AI technology is not improving fast enough. Everyone’s shocked how fast technology has evolved over the past couple of years. But to me, it’s still not fast enough. It’s too slow,” Li said.
Baidu launched Ernie, a ChatGPT-style chatbot, last year based on the company’s eponymous large language model. Chinese companies, like their American counterparts, are heavily investing in their own AI models.
Li noted that there is a significant difference between developing the technology in the U.S. and Europe versus China. In the U.S. and Europe, companies are focusing on “coming up with the most powerful, most cutting edge foundation model,” according to Li. However, in China, he noted the focus is on applications of the technology.
In spite of this, the CEO of Baidu stated that there is not currently a “killer app” for AI.
“Today, in the mobile age, you have apps like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. The daily active users are in the order of, like, a few 100 million to a billion users, right? And for AI native apps, we don’t see that yet. We don’t see that in U.S. We don’t see that in China. We don’t see that in Europe,” Li said.
