Beyond human control

THE RACE FOR ARTIFICIAL GENERAL INTELLIGENCE POSES NEW RISKS TO AN UNSTABLE WORLD

- BY BILLY PERRIGO

UNDER A CRYSTAL CHANDELIER IN A HIGHceilinged anteroom in Paris, the moderator of Intelligence Rising is reprimanding his players. These 12 former government officials, academics, and artificial intelligence researchers are here to participate in a simulated exercise about Al's impact on geopolitics. But just an hour into the simulation, things have already begun to go south.

The team representing the U.S. has decided to stymie Chinese AI development by blocking all chip exports to China. This has raised the odds, the moderator says, of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan: the U.S. ally that is home to the world's most advanced chip-manufacturing plants. It is 2026, and the simulated world is on the brink of a potentially devastating showdown between two nuclear superpowers.

Why? Because each team is racing to create what's known as artificial general intelligence, or AGI: an AI system so good, it can perform almost any task better, cheaper, and faster than a person can. Both teams believe getting to AGI first will deliver them unimaginable power and riches. Neither dares contemplate what horrors their rival might visit upon them with that kind of strength.

While this scenario might seem farfetched, many insiders say it is anything but. Top technologists now believe that AGI is within touching distance. Sam Altman, the CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, expects the first AGI to be created during President Trump's second term in office. OpenAI, Google, Microsoft. Amazon, and Meta are together funneling hundreds of billions of dollars-the equivalent cost in today's dollars of a dozen Manhattan Projects per year-into the construction of huge data centers where they believe AGI will be summoned into existence.