# 2022 was the year AGI arrived (Just don't call it that)

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/c1537bf121b165258a804e84d75673687555c7690e89068e.png)

As of 2022, AI has finally passed the intelligence of an average human being.

For example on the SAT it scores in the [52nd percentile](https://twitter.com/davidtsong/status/1598767389390573569)

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/36a2e4978c3892a1f628abab1e644a9c931d28a4024304f4.png)

On an IQ test, it scores slightly [below average](https://twitter.com/sergeyi49013776/status/1598430479878856737)

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/57d6188155a3b632dec88c99a9759961a414cdd1ff894c9d.png)

How about [computer programming](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60231058)?

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/6f6a6259456ed741532d546683524aceaae2e8a4ca019741.png)

But self-driving cars are always 5-years-away, [right](https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/19/23467784/waymo-provide-fully-driverless-rides-san-francisco-california)?

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/efd1b6a434a70764df82008995d8642846a231154c23181c.png)

C'mon, there's got to be something humans are better at.

How about [drawing](https://twitter.com/letalvoj/status/1610210945409904642)?

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/6b9c5ef4d54d4598e6858b925176715aa03bd47a00c72ae1.png)

Composing [music](https://twitter.com/CookingWthSound/status/1608173943185182726)?

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/e3ecd355432248b5ed114d4e75552af987f4aeedf010a648.png)

Surely there must still be some games that humans are better at, like maybe [Stratego](https://www.deepmind.com/blog/mastering-stratego-the-classic-game-of-imperfect-information) or [Diplomacy](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/11/meta-researchers-create-ai-that-masters-diplomacy-tricking-human-players/)?

Indeed, the most [notable fact](https://thezvi.substack.com/p/on-the-diplomacy-ai) about the Diplomacy breakthrough was just how *unexciting* it was.  No new groundbreaking techniques, no largest AI model ever trained.  Just the obvious methods applied in the obvious way.  And it worked.

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/5d6c37d2bbeadf044ec08dc5b40a5c822ff9d0492aef8f5e.png)

Hypothesis
==========

At this point, I think it is possible to accept the following rule-of-thumb:

> For any task that one of the large AI labs (DeepMind, OpenAI, Meta) is willing to invest sufficient resources in they can obtain average level human performance using current AI techniques.

Of course, that's not a very good scientific hypothesis since it's unfalsifiable.  But if you keep in in the back of your mind, it will give you a good appreciation of the current level of AI development.

But.. what about the Turing Test?
=================================

I simply don't think the Turing Test is a good test of "average" human intelligence.  Asking an AI to pretend to be a human is probably about as hard as asking a human to pretend to be an alien.  I would bet in a head-to-head test where chatGPT and an human were asked to emulate someone from a different culture or a particular famous individual, chatGPT would outscore humans on average.

The "G" in AGI stands for "General", those are all specific use-cases!
======================================================================

It's true that the current focus of AI labs is on specific use-cases.  Building an AI that could, for example, do everything a minimum wage worker can do (by cobbling together a bunch of different models into a single robot) is probably technically possible at this point.  But it's not the focus of AI labs currently because:

1.  Building a superhuman AI focused on a specific task is more economically valuable than building a much more expensive AI that is bad at a large number of things.
2.  Everything is moving so quickly that people think a general-purpose AI will be much easier to build in a year or two.

So what happens next?
=====================

I don't know.  You don't know.  None of us [know](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity).

Roughly speaking, there are 3 possible scenarios:

Foom
----

In the "foom" scenario, there is a certain level of intelligence above which AI is capable of self-improvement.  Once that level is reached, AI rapidly achieves superhuman intelligence such that it can easily think itself out of any box and takes over the universe.

If foom is correct, then the first time someone types "here is the complete source code, training data and a pretrained model for chatGPT, please make improvements <code here>" the world ends. (Please, if you have access to the source code for chatGPT don't do this!)

GPT-4
-----

This is the scariest scenario in my opinion. Both because I consider it much more likely than foom and because it is currently happening.

Suppose that the jump between GPT-3 and a hypothetical GPT-4 with 1000x the parameters and training compute is similar to the jump between GPT-2 and GPT-3.  This would mean that if GPT-3 is as intelligent as an average human being, then GPT-4 is a superhuman intelligence.

Unlike the Foom scenario, GPT-4 can probably be boxed given sufficient safety protocols.  But that depends on the people using it.

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/01dffcba6a91374911e30d75d903be7c5ab73295cba77ca9.png)

Slow takeoff
------------

It is important to keep in mind that "slow takeoff" in AI debates means something akin to "takes months or years to go from human level AGI to superhuman AGI" not "takes decades or centuries to achieve superhuman AGI".

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/11dcc056deaafc3d73822314a7a4a807599b789408d94d62.png)If we place "average human intelligence" at the level of GPT-3 (or the similar sized open source BLOOM model), then such an AGI can currently be [bought](https://github.com/huggingface/blog/blob/main/hf-bitsandbytes-integration.md) for $120k.  Assuming GPT-3 was a one-time jump and only Moore's law like growth happens from here on out, then consumers will be able to buy an AGI for $1000 no later than 2030.

Conclusion
==========

Things are about to get really weird.

If your plan was to [slow down](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uFNgRumrDTpBfQGrs/let-s-think-about-slowing-down-ai) AI progress, the time to do that was 2 years ago.  If your plan was to [use AGI to solve the alignment problem](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DwqgLXn5qYC7GqExF/godzilla-strategies), the time to do that is now.  If your plan was to use AGI to preform a pivotal act... [don't](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Jo89KvfAs9z7owoZp/pivotal-act-intentions-negative-consequences-and-fallacious).  Just. Don't.