That’s a compelling and even comforting thought for many people. “We are in an era in which other paths to the material improvement of human lives and our societies seem to have been exhausted,” says Vallor.
Technology once promised a route to a better future: progress was a ladder we would climb toward human and social flourishing. “We’re past the peak of that,” Vallor says. “I think the one thing that gives a lot of people hope and a return to that kind of optimism about the future is AGI.”
Take this idea to its conclusion and, again, AGI becomes a kind of god, one who can offer relief from earthly suffering, Vallor says.
Kelly Joyce, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina who studies how cultural, political, and economic beliefs shape the way we think about and use technology, sees all of these wild predictions about AGI as something more banal: part of a long-term pattern of overpromising by the tech industry. “What’s interesting to me is that we always get caught up,” he says. “There is a deep belief that technology is better than human beings.”
Joyce believes that this is why, when the hype arises, people are predisposed to believe it. “It’s a religion,” he says. “We believe in technology. Technology is God. It’s very difficult to oppose it. People don’t want to hear it.”
How AGI hijacked an industry
The fantasy of computers that can do almost anything a person can do is seductive. But like many widespread conspiracy theories, it has very real consequences. It has distorted the way we think about what is at stake behind the current tech boom (and its potential downfall). It may even have derailed the industry, absorbing resources for more immediate and practical applications of the technology. More than anything, it gives us free rein to be lazy. It tricks us into thinking that we could avoid the real hard work needed to solve intractable, global problems—problems that will require international cooperation, compromise, and costly aid. Why bother with that when we will soon have machines that will solve everything for us?
Let’s consider the resources that are being invested in this great project. Last month, OpenAI and Nvidia announced a partnership of up to $100 billion that would allow the chip giant to supply at least 10 gigawatts of ChatGPT’s insatiable demand. That is more than the figures for nuclear power plants. Lightning could release so much energy. The flux capacitor inside Dr. Emmett Brown’s DeLorean time machine only required 1.2 gigawatts to send Marty back to the future. And then, just two weeks later, OpenAI announced a second partnership with chipmaker AMD for another six gigawatts of power.
Promoting the Nvidia deal on CNBC, Altman, with a straight face, stated that without this type of data center construction, people would have to choose between a cure for cancer and free education. “No one wants to make that decision,” he said. (Just a few weeks later, he announced that erotic chats would come to ChatGPT).
Added to those costs is the loss of investment in more immediate technology that could change lives today, tomorrow and the next. “To me, it’s a huge missed opportunity,” says Lirio’s Symons, “to put all these resources into solving something nebulous when we already know there are real problems we can solve.”
But that’s not how companies like OpenAI should operate. “Because people spend so much money at these companies, they don’t have to,” Symons says. “If you have hundreds of billions of dollars, you don’t have to focus on a practical, solvable project.”
Despite his strong belief that AGI is coming, Krueger also believes that the industry’s determined pursuit means that potential solutions to real problems, such as better healthcare, are being ignored. “This AGI thing is nonsense, it’s a distraction, it’s an exaggeration,” he tells me.
