According to SoftBank’s CEO, general artificial intelligence is only two to three years away at most. “Super AI” could even be possible in a decade.

This was stated by Masayoshi Son, CEO of the Japanese technology group SoftBank, during his company’s conference in Tokyo. According to Son, developments in artificial intelligence are happening very quickly. “An intelligence gold rush has begun. The one who runs the fastest will win,” Son said.

The next big development in AI development would be “general artificial intelligence”: the point at which the capabilities of AI systems are at the same level as the human brain. This Terminator scenario is a maximum of two to three years away, according to the SoftBank CEO. Within this decade and a half, we could even have a “super AI” that is up to ten thousand times more intelligent than humans.

First think, then act

Son sees his predictions reinforced by the recent launch of OpenAI’s 01 model. This model is able to “think” before giving an answer. The answer will take a little longer, but the quality should be significantly higher.

The CEO asked the model how he could turn ten million yen into one hundred million and received a detailed answer within 75 seconds. Unfortunately, Son kept the answer to himself. The ability to think is an important step towards intelligence, but of course much more is needed to be considered equal to AI. Achieving general intelligence is OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s dream.

It is no coincidence that Son refers to the OpenAI models. SoftBank is one of the investors in OpenAI’s latest investment round. The Japanese technology group, which also includes Arm Holdings, invested $500 million.