The rapid development of artificial development models over the past few years has created widespread concerns about the potential negative impact such emerging technologies could have on the human race.

According to experts, the next step in AI evolution is the emergence of artificial general intelligence, which is characterized by the ability of AI programs to perform a variety of tasks as well or better than human brain power. While the generally accepted timeline for the development of AGI has been some time by the end of this decade, one influential figure recently shared his belief that it will be several years earlier than that.

At a recent AGI summit, SingularityNET founder Ben Goertzel theorized that superhuman AI capabilities will be available as soon as 2027.

“No one has created human-level artificial general intelligence yet,” he acknowledged. “Nobody has a solid knowledge of when we’re going to get there. I mean, there are known unknowns and probably unknown unknowns. On the other hand, to me it seems quite plausible we could get to human-level AGI within, let’s say, the next three to eight years.”

From there, he shared his belief that the next step would be artificial superintelligence, described by some experts as the singularity, or the point at which machines and the human mind essentially merge. Of course, there is still an opportunity for humans — or perhaps even AI itself — to curtail that progress and either forestall or prevent the creation of ASI.

“My own view is once you get to human-level AGI, within a few years you could get a radically superhuman AGI, unless the AGI threatens to throttle its own development out of its own conservatism,” Goertzel said. “I think once an AGI can introspect its own mind, then it can do engineering and science at a human or superhuman level. It should be able to make a smarter AGI, then an even smarter AGI, then an intelligence explosion.”

“I’m ready for the machines to tell us what to do.”

Stephen Colbert is even more bought into the WEF agenda than Klaus Schwab’s bff Yuval Noah Harari. pic.twitter.com/qhWwaBB6Qh

— Mythinformed (@MythinformedMKE) March 5, 2024

Computer scientist Ray Kurzeweil believes we will encounter the singularity by mid-century, but attempted to put a positive spin on an otherwise troubling assessment.

“You could compare it to raising kids,” he said last year. “We raise them with our knowledge, beliefs, values. We trust them to become good citizens. We will become a hybrid species — biology and technology combined. It’s really a matter of trusting each other as we evolve.”