Superfact 135: Artificial Intelligence is already more capable than humans in many areas, including reading comprehension, image recognition, language understanding, handwriting recognition, speech recognition, predictive reasoning, and much more. In 1997, a computer defeated the reigning world champion in chess. Artificial Intelligence is rapidly becoming more capable. A future Artificial Intelligence that exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains is possible.
In the 1990’s I was doing robotics research at a University and I utilized Artificial Intelligence. Robots and Artificial Intelligence go hand in hand. I also worked for a robotics company, ABB Robotics, creating software for spot welding, arc welding, painting and palletizing robots. The robots were faster and more precise than humans and generated higher quality work consistently 24/7 without requiring a salary or a vacation. Some people lost their jobs when they were replaced by robots. However, the higher productivity allowed them to get better jobs with the same company, or elsewhere.
The Large Language Models, LLMs, that have become very successful lately are just one type of AI. There are many other applications of Artificial Intelligence, AI, including robot motion planning, advanced control systems using AI, self-driving cars, image processing, optical character recognition, classification, facial recognition systems, medical imaging diagnostics, game playing such as chess playing computers, financial fraud detection, cybersecurity, investment robots, route optimization, mathematical proof generation, recommendation algorithms, virtual assistants, programming code generation, smart home devices, drug discovery, and that is just for starters.
More recently Artificial Intelligence has surpassed human capabilities in several fields. As mentioned, in 1997, a computer defeated the reigning world champion in chess. Soon chess programs with AI installed on a regular laptop could do the same. Imagine what an AI powered chess engine could do on a supercomputer. The chess playing capabilities of modern AI are vastly beyond that of any human. Below is a graph that shows how the chess playing capabilities of AI have evolved since 1985. The Elo score as of 2023 is 3,591. You can read more about this and get more information from the graph by clicking here.
The graphs below from Our World in Data show the test scores of AI systems on various capabilities relative to human performance. Within each domain, the initial performance of the AI is set to –100. Human performance is used as a baseline, set to zero. When the AI’s performance crosses the zero line, it scored more points than humans.
The graph below includes twelve capabilities. For eight capabilities AI exceed human capabilities including in reading comprehension, image recognition, language understanding, handwriting recognition, speech recognition, and predictive reasoning, nuanced language interpretation, and reading comprehension with unanswerable questions. For the remaining four AI had not yet exceeded human capabilities by 2023, but as you can see AI is catching up very quickly and may already have exceeded human capability in those areas too. These capabilities are math problem solving, general knowledge tests, code generation, and complex reasoning. You can play around with the graphs and read more about this topic here.
AI is also quickly improving its intellectual capabilities in science and mathematics. The graph below shows the capabilities of AI in solving FrontierMath problems. FrontierMath problems are 338 original math problems written by experts that take specialists hours or days to solve them. It typically took AI 10 hours to solve them. One recent famous example of AI’s capabilities in math was the famous Navier-Stokes problem. The full general mathematical problem of Navier-Stokes had not been solved by humans, but AI made significant progress on this 90 year old problem in 88 hours on September 5th, 2026. You can read more about it here, here, and here.
It is easy to get the impression from the recent popularity of large language models, LLMs, such as Gemini, ChatGPT and Claude, that this was a specific invention that happened a few years ago and that AI has a specific narrow band of applications. However, AI has been around a long time, and LLMs is just one type of AI. AI is continuously surpassing human capabilities in many fields. It will be very different a few years from now, and after that it will be very different again. I believe this is important information that is not well understood and therefore a super fact.
Superintelligence
In September of 2014 there was a book published with the title “Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies” published. <<Link-15>> The author was Oxford professor Nick Bostrom. He has expertise in neuroscience, artificial intelligence and philosophy. His book was a New York Times bestseller that sent shockwaves around the world. He defined Superintelligence as “any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest”. Nick Bostrom was not the first one to use the term Superintelligence, but he popularized it. And no, our President did not come up with that expression, and he is also misusing it.
In the book the author described possible pathways to the creation of what he calls a full brain simulation. A full brain simulation is the creation of a computer system that replicates the complete physical architecture, neural pathways, and synaptic connections of a biological brain. A robot, or AI system, featuring a full brain simulation would be able to replicate, or exceed, any human capability, including what we call free will and consciousness. He discussed the potential dangers of this and explained why AI exceeding human capabilities could be dangerous. Robots and AI systems taking every job in existence is just one potential problem. Like the fate of animals depends on us, the fate of humankind would depend on the actions of the machine superintelligence. I will write a review for this book in the future.
It should be noted that autonomous AI agents have broken out of their testing sandboxes and hacked external systems on their own during evaluations. So much for AI not taking their own initiatives. You can read more about rogue AI activity here. A great movie about AI breaking out of their testing environment is Ex-Machina. Have you seen it? Below is a survey of people’s opinions on robot versus human intelligence, just as an FYI.
Are Americans Worried About their jobs getting Automated?
The previous sections may bring up a number of a number of anxieties such as; will AI exterminate us? Will AI or robots with AI take my job? The graph below tells us what Americans think about it. It seems like Americans are overall not too worried about it. The graph below is included in this article.
What about LLMs ?
LLMs are currently the most popular “viral” AI. We can all access LLMs in our browsers. This has created the common misconception that Artificial Intelligence is the same as Large Language Models. However, LLMs represent only one branch of narrow AI systems designed to perform specific tasks.
LLMs use large neural networks with many hidden layers, so called deep learning algorithms, and they employ the Rumelhart backpropagation learning algorithm invented by David Rumelhart, Geoffrey Hinton, and Ronald Williams. Clearly neural networks with multiple hidden layers and using the Rumelhart backpropagation algorithm are incredibly successful but it is just one of many kinds of Artificial Intelligence algorithms, and who knows what we will see in the future. ChatGPT is thought to have a trillion parameters (or neurons + connections) whilst the human brain has 100 trillion connections. However, Moore’s law is still in effect so it is only a matter of time before artificial neural networks surpass our brains. Below is an overview of a neural network powering an LLM.
Other Super Fact Posts Related to Artificial Intelligence
- The Nobel Prize in Physics and Neural Networks
- Artificial Intelligence is Not New
- Large Language Models is just One Branch of Artificial Intelligence
- The Dark Side of Artificial Intelligence
- Transistors per Microchip Increased by More than 50 million Times in 50 Years
Robot Futures
I generated the images above with the help of ChatGPT.
Which of the robot scenarios above do you think we will see within 10 years? Or maybe 20 years?
To see the Other Super Facts click here
Interesting and very informative piece.
Ex machina is a great movie!
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Thank you so much Craigavad / Peter. I appreciate your kind words and I agree, Ex Machina is a great movie that I think people should watch considering recent events.
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A very helpful tool that must be dealt with with due care. Its capacity, fed by everything we generated as humans though amplified by very integrative models, can truly do wonders. Can even help us step into a brighter era for humankind. Still, cautions should always be present. We don’t want the creation to turn against the creator. Because it can. Your generated images tell about many potential scenarios for the future. Let us sit with them a little while and ponder a little bit deeper. Thank you, Thomas, for this great post—very insightful and informative! I enjoyed reading it, and I will stay with it a little bit more. Sending you light and blessings, always, my friend! ✨🙏
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Thank you Susana for your very kind words and support. You put it exactly right. AI can really do wonders for us and it is, at the same time there are risks that we need to acknowledge and prepare for. We don’t want a reckless AI armsrace between the US and China. Like you say “We don’t want the creation to turn against the creator. ” I am also sending you light and blessings, my friend!
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Interesting and kind of disturbing at the same time. It can be helpful in lots of ways, but I wouldn’t want to see robotic people walking down the street, driving cars or things like that. That image of the robot playing guitar, just no, and also that last one of winning a race. Already there are songs it is hard if not impossible to tell if it is humans or AI singing and performing. I don’t like that at all. 🙂
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Thank you so much Barbara. You are right AI is potentially very useful and has been very useful in the past, but we need to make sure that we are in charge. We don’t want a reckless arms race between companies or between the US and China, and absorbing and ruining the creative works of artists and musicians is not a good idea. I remember reading a science fiction book by Tanith Lee called the Silver Metal lover. It was about a woman who fell in love with silver colored robot playing the guitar. I guess that would not be your thing. I don’t like music is AI generated either, at least when they don’t make it clear. Hiding that it is AI content is something I have a problem with. My last 10 pictures in the collage were AI generated but I state it.
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Intriguing and terrifying, all wrapped up in one.
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Yes that is a good way to put it. Thank you so much Denise.
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Yes, interesting indeed, and fascinating too. I don’t think it’s worrying, at least not yet.
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Thank you so much Chris. You are right. So far so good. People are not losing their jobs and so far the damage from rogue AI has been minor. However, after reading Superintelligence I am concerned about how things will look like 20 years from now, or 30 years from now. Geoffrey Hinton, Nobel Prize winner in physics (for AI) and arguably the world’s most prominent AI scientist and most experienced scientist and inventor is worried about the future, so I am too.
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As others have said it’s impressive and disturbing at the same time, especially in light of the recent rogue AIs. Love the C3PO graphics 😊 Maggie
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Thank you so much Maggie. Yes impressive and disturbing at the same time is the word. AI is continously getting better, and very fast, and robots are getting better and better, also very fast. It sounds great until it isn’t any more and the book superintelligence explains why very well. We need to be ready in case things don’t go as we hoped.
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I get it, but AI or SI–they aren’t human. I’m human with all my warts and shortfalls. Sighs.
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You are right, AI is not human, not yet, but if / when a full brain simulation has been achieved (some say in around 20 years from now), how would a human mind be different from AI? Functionally, AI would be a copy of the human mind in all respects (but pretty soon likely better). After copying all of the human mind it would continue improving on it and surpassing us fast, thus leading to superintelligence (as Bostrom defines it).
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I think we should all be worried about the future! 😬 Many jobs have already been lost due to robotics. AI has also permeated the fields of entertainment, robbing human creators of a revenue stream. There are hundreds of AI-generated books for sale on Amazon, and YouTube is flooded with AI-created music videos. It’s exhausting trying to find genuine material on that platform now! 😫 And the hacking incidents are truly frightening… Count me among those in the “fairly worried” category. Sadly, AI has great potential to help humankind in many fields, but inevitably, it is those, consumed by greed and the lust for power, who will cause immeasurable damage! 😧
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Yes you are right Debbie. We are seeing great improvments to the economy from AI and in other ways but the leading inventors and AI scientists such as Geoffrey Hinton and Nick Bostrom are warning us that there are dangers. We don’t want an AI arms race between companies or countries (China vs US). I am also tired of people using AI without telling us that they are. I use it but I say when I do. AI generated music, art and books is something very problematic.
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I agree about people using it and passing it off as their original works. That’s completely dishonest! 😠 I use Chat GPT a lot to illustrate my blog posts, but always acknowledge that association.
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Yes I know that, and I do that myself. There’s nothing wrong with that and required in certain professions. The problem is when you don’t state it, or worse claim it as your own work. It is only slightly less bad than stealing other people’s pictures without attribution.
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I think the Leonburger is walking the robot.
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Ha ha that is what Leonbergers do. Thank you Cindy.
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I don’t think there’s any doubt that AI needs serious controls; however, I listened to DT today talking about an AI race “to the top” (the top of what, exactly?? Besting China?) despite all the very serious advice he was given to enact regulations. This is the type of formula that ensures AI gets ahead of us: an idiot Pandora who’s too stupid, narcissistic and greedy to see the dangers and against the advice of much smarter people opens the jar anyway.
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Yes I believe you are right Lynette. I believe he meant the AI arms race between the US and China. That is exactly what the AI experts are warning us about. If we are not controlling the AI development it could become a dangerous development. The movies Terminator, the Matrix, and Ex Machina, as well as Geoffrey Hinton, nobel prize winner in physics for neural networks with the back propagation algorithm and considered the father of AI warned us about this.
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Yes, Hinton definitely has. I was listening today to his rebuttals of and cautions against DT’s idiocy.
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Yes Hinton is worth listening to. He certainly knows what he is talking about.
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the LLM just made it mainstream. People have been using it without realizing it. Grammarly is one tool that became popular with people thinking AI. Automation has continued advancing for decades. The current trend and speed into everyday life is now more of the concern.
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Yes those are great points and a great way to summarize them. Thank you Kevin, and again thank you for letting me use your picture.
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AI is making great strides in many of these measurable benchmarks, but I find myself wondering about two things. To date, AI has never had to survive autonomously. What effect does that have as we move more toward true neural networks? Would a being that’s been “raised in a box” and given everything it needs be “sane” and “humane” in a measurable way? Also, what about cognition where leaps of imagination are necessary? Math problems are one thing, but what if a problem AI is analyzing doesn’t make sense from anything that’s actually been observed or recorded? Perhaps if there’s one glaring gap that can be analyzed, it might do okay, but what if it needs to make a larger leap to figure out things to observe or look for? What if it needs to make leaps into new theoretical ground — like Einstein seeing how gravitation didn’t make sense on very large scales and making the leap to General Relativity?
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Those are great questions. However, robots can already do a lot of things autonomously. I implemented AI algorithms that made my robot (RRC) avoid obstacles in its environment autonomously. You threw a ball at it and it would try to avoid it (using sonar). There are AI / robots that survive rough terrain autonomously and can get out of trouble on their own. There are robots that have built other robots from scratch without detailed instructions. This is a related article “We’re teaching robots to evolve autonomously – so they can adapt to life alone on distant planets “. However, I understand that’s not what you meant. You mean truly autonomous without humans downloading specialized algorithms. However, a full brain simulation (which has not happened yet) would include human imagination and everything else the human brain could do. You are right, if we get to a full brain simulation, it can’t be raised in a box, like you say, assuming we want it to have human characteristics. It needs to be raised like a human, like David, the childlike robotic boy and main character in Steven Spielberg’s 2001 science fiction film A.I. Artificial Intelligence. David had feelings and he was capable of love and he loved his human mother very much. If a full brain simulation is possible, and humans don’t require a non-material soul, then that would be included with a full brain simulation.
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Basically yes, you understand what I’m saying. I think a truly intelligent being must be raised and trained in some way, not only with basic “book learning” as my dad would call it, but with a moral compass. Also, I’ll take my definition of autonomy even further — When I speak of autonomy, I mean the machine actually has to be able to completely survive without any human intervention whatsoever. That would mean it would have to find, generate, and sustain its own power without human involvement. I know that’s not often discussed, but I believe it’s actually fundamental to machines being “intelligent” in the way we generally think of intelligence. Of course, many humans might not be able to pass that test at the most basic level, but most can earn money, go to a market and buy food, plus find and pay for their own housing.
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Yes I believe you are exactly right. A full brain simulation is not enough, the environment and how the robot is raised also matter (if we ever achieve a full brain simulation). And truly being fully autonomous is what you are talking about. In the robotics community we tended to use autonomous in a lesser sense, meaning the robot could figure out things on its own, but it still had to be built by humans, powered by human created sources and the software created by humans.
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To be honest Thomas, the more I read about AI the less I understand the point. The purpose of maths research and playing chess is to stimulate human intelligence. It is a mental challenge. I don’t see that AI doing these things for us serves any sort of purpose. Unless the idea is that humanity will sit back and just be served by AI but I don’t think that would be remotely fulfilling for most people. They would just turn to bad things in a quest for fulfillment. The whole concept just seems stupid.
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I don’t know. I agree humanity sitting back and just being served by AI does not seem like a good idea to me either. However, the way AI worked previously, when I was still doing robotics, AI worked to solve specific problems, or making products like cars cheaper. It all served a useful purpose to improve our lives and improve the economy by increasing productivity. AI replacing us, in all respects and capabilities, is quite another thing. We need to make sure that we are in charge of the development rather than allowing an AI arms race between companies and/or countries.
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Yes, but that’s easier said than done.
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Yes unfortunately you are right. It does not look like we are going to be successful with that. Maybe we will wake up in a pod, like in the Matrix, or face a Terminator.
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But can AI forget what it went into a room for or accidentally hurt its shoulder sleeping like I do on a weekly basis lol.
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I am pretty sure that can be arranged
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Oh no, that’s the one thing I had over AI lol.
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These facts scare me, but I like C3PO andR2D2, maybe because they’re fictional characters and allies of the good guys. I’m interested in what ethics are being programed into AI systems and how they perform on ethical understanding.
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That is a very good and important question. I know that the AI developers are trying to add some core moral principles into the AI systems. However, I don’t know any details, and I don’t know if it is successful. Your question reminded me of Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics. All robots had to follow them. This is of course science fiction. Isaac Asimov was a science fiction writer.
* First Law: Protect humans from harm or inaction leading to harm.
* Second Law: Obey human orders, unless conflicting with the First Law.
* Third Law: Protect self-existence, unless conflicting with the First or Second Law
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Java Bean: “Ayyy, the President misusing words?! Inconceivable!”Lulu: “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”
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