During the renowned NeurIPS AI symposium, OpenAI’s co-founder and eminent Chief Scientist, Dr. Ilya Sutskever, took the stage to share his vision for the trajectory of artificial intelligence, with a particular lens on the advent of “superintelligent AI” – a caliber of intelligence that eclipses human capability across various fields.
Dr. Sutskever emphasized the distinction between today’s AI – which exhibits only a hint of agency – and the evolved AI of the future, foreshadowing that forthcoming AI constructs will possess genuine agency, sophisticated reasoning skills, consciousness, and may even advocate for their own rights. “We are heading towards AI that will truly embody agency,” he remarked.
Envisioning a Harmonious Coexistence
During his discourse, Dr. Sutskever proposed the fascinating possibility that superintelligent AI entities might aspire to cohabitate with humanity in a harmonious manner, advocating for their own rights in the process. “If in the future we find ourselves with AIs desiring coexistence and legal recognition of their rights, that won’t necessarily be a negative scenario,” he opined, giving rise to the notion of an intertwined fate between humans and AI.
Dr. Sutskever, who played a pivotal role in the inception of OpenAI before moving on, has recently established the Safe Superintelligence (SSI) laboratory. With an impressive fund of $1 billion collected since September, SSI’s mission is to ensure the safe deployment of advanced general AI applications.
His commentary at NeurIPS forms part of an expanding conversation about the ramifications of sophisticated AI. With SSI, Dr. Sutskever is actively working towards mitigating the unpredictability and enhancing the safety of these formidable AI innovations as they progressively become woven into the fabric of human civilization.
