After AI’s setbacks, Meta bets billions about indefinite “superintelligence”

Meta has developed plans to create a new artificial intelligence research laboratory dedicated to pursue “Superintelligence”, according to New York Times reports. The social networks giant chose 28 years Alexandr WangFounder and CEO AI scaleto join the new laboratory as part of a broader reorganization of the goal efforts under the CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Superintelligence refers to a hypothetical AI system that would exceed human cognitive skills, one step beyond artificial general intelligence (AGI), whose objective is to match the ability of an intelligent human to learn new tasks without intensive specialized training.

However, like AGI, the superintelligence remains a hairy term in the field. Since scientists still understand the mechanics of human intelligence, and because human intelligence resists simple quantification without a unique definition, the identification of superintelligence when it arrives will present significant challenges.

Computers already exceed humans in certain forms of information processing, such as calculations, but this close superiority does not qualify as superintelligence in most definitions. The search assumes that we will recognize it when we see it, despite the conceptual confusion.

IA’s researcher, Dr. Margaret Mitchell, told Ars Technica in April 2024 that “there will probably be agreement on comparisons between human intelligence and the machine”, but predicted that “men in positions of power and influence, particularly those who have investments in AI, will declare that AI is smarter than humans”, regardless of reality.

The new laboratory represents the goal effort to continue being competitive in the career of the increasingly full, where technological giants continue to invest billions in the investigation and the acquisition of talents. According to reports, Meta has offered compensation packages for seven to nine figures to dozens of companies such as OpenAi and Google, according to the New York Times, and some agree to join the company.

Goal joins a growing list of technological giants that make bold statements about the advanced development of AI. In January, the CEO of Openai, Sam Altman, wrote in a blog post that “we are now sure we know how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood.” Previously, in September 2024, Altman predicted that the AI ​​industry could develop superintelligence “in a few thousand days.” Elon Musk made an even more aggressive prediction in April 2024, saying that AI would be “smarter than the smartest human” for “next year, in two years.”