Hello, Reader.
Neither J.D. Vance nor Tim Walz mentioned it at last night’s vice-presidential debate… nor did Kamala Harris or Donald Trump talk about it during their September 10 presidential debate.
As far as I recall, none of the moderators at either debate asked a question about it.
Meanwhile, it’s all anyone seems to be talking about out here in the real world…
That is, of course, artificial intelligence.
On Monday, just a day before the debate, this headline from Foreign Policy magazine came up in my feed…
The Artificial General Intelligence Presidency Is Coming
In this opinion piece, Ylli Bajraktari, the president and CEO of the Special Competitive Studies Project, argued that the next presidential term could be the most impactful of our lifetime due to the imminent arrival of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
Bajraktari writes…
It is increasingly probable that the next U.S. presidential term could see the development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)… It will revolutionize the economy, turbocharge scientific discovery, propel the quality of life to unimagined heights, and grant near invulnerability to national security.
That sounds pretty good!
However, he continues…
If, however, AGI is inaugurated in Beijing then the situation could be very different, and its effects likely malign. Chinese possession of AGI would give its troops the edge on every battlefield, its businesses the advantage in every market, and its security services the capacity to enforce a level of surveillance and repression that exceeds anything yet attempted by an authoritarian state.
That sounds to me like something the debate moderators should have asked our aspirational leaders about. Regardless, it’s too late now; debate season is over.
Lucky for us, however, we’ve been talking about AGI, its possibilities, and its dangers here at Smart Money for months now. We’re staying informed about what’s coming our way.
As we’ve been saying, AGI is when AI becomes capable of “generalized” cognitive abilities, allowing it to achieve superhuman cognition.
It is beyond anything most of us have ever dreamed of. AGI not a faster horse-and-buggy situation, or even a leap from horse-and-buggy to automobile. It’s like going from a horse-and-buggy directly to time travel.
Even the very stuffed shirts at Foreign Policy now seem to understand that these changes are coming fast.
So today, let’s take a look at some recent evidence for AGI’s arrival.
Plus, we all know someone who will talk about all things AI and AGI: Elon Musk. In fact, the CEO of Tesla Inc. (TSLA) is scheduled to make a big AI-related announcement next Thursday, October 10.
So, today I’ll also clue you in on what specifically Musk is unveiling… and about one related investment opportunity that could take off.
Let’s take a look…
The AGI Evidence Is Stacking Up
Just last month, ChatGPT developer OpenAI introduced o1, the first in its new series of AI models that are “designed to spend more time thinking before they respond.”
If the rumors are true, o1 is OpenAI’s anticipated “Strawberry” model. That large language model (LLM) is so powerful that it reportedly created such… mixed feelings… that it led to the November 2023 fight between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his board of directors. (Altman came out on top.)
If the suppositions are true, Strawberry will not just surpass the capabilities of current AI models. It will be able to plan ahead, navigate complex tasks autonomously, and, most significantly, solve problems it hasn’t encountered before. In other words, it’s a significant step toward AGI.
OpenAI’s o1 seems to be making good on that promise. We can see that in testing performance. For example, GPT-4o, an OpenAI model unveiled in May, correctly solved 13% of problems in the qualifying exam for the International Mathematics Olympiad. However, o1 got 83% of the problems correct.
Unlike previous AI models, o1’s reasoning capabilities comes from a prompting technique known as “chain of thought.” As OpenAI says, o1 “learns to recognize and correct its mistakes. It learns to break down tricky steps into simpler ones. It learns to try a different approach when the current one isn’t working.”
It has long been OpenAI’s primary goal to create AGI. The company’s mission even states one of its goals is “to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.”
To track its progress toward this goal, OpenAI conceived a five-level AI-classification system…
- Level 1: Chatbots – AI systems that understand natural language and handle conversational tasks. This is the current state of AI. Think, of course, ChatGPT.
- Level 2: Reasoners – AI systems that exhibit human-level problem-solving abilities.
- Level 3: Agents – AI systems that can operate autonomously on a user’s behalf for several days.
- Level 4: Innovators – AI systems that generate innovations independently for specific domains such as science and medicine.
- Level 5: Organizations – AI systems that perform the collective work of an entire organization.
OpenAI executives reportedly told employees that o1 was nearing a Level 2. So, the company is truly a step – or level – closer to developing AGI.
William Saunders, a former member of technical staff at OpenAI, believes it’s plausible that an AGI system can be built in as little as three years. While testifying before Congress about the threat of AI reaching human-level intelligence, Saunders said that “AI companies are making rapid progress toward building AGI,” specifically referring to o1’s debut.
Elon Musk’s timeframe is even shorter. He predicts that AGI will be upon us in the next two years.
Of course, there are still those who have their doubts about AGI’s development. Speaking at Cypher 2024, India’s largest AI conference, Kailash Nadh, chief technology officer at Zerodha, insists that it is unrealistic to claim that AGI can be achieved within two to five years.
The reality is that we don’t know when exactly AGI will arrive. What we do know, though, is that we need to prepare for it.
In the meantime, other areas of AI continue to make advancements… such as in autonomous vehicles (AV).
The Robotaxi Is Coming
In fact, Musk says that Teslawill unveil its self-driving robotaxi, the “Cybercab,” next Thursday, October 10.
This robotaxi is set to completely transform transportation and create an incredible amount of wealth for investors who get in on the early stages. However, like any game-changing innovation, there will be companies – and people – who get left behind.
“To put it bluntly, we are cooked,” The Register reports one person posted in a San Francisco Uber driver forum. “We’re done for. In the age of artificial intelligence and automation, we’re the first to be impacted in a major way.”
My InvestorPlace colleague Luke Lango has spent weeks researching Musk’s robotaxi ahead of next week’s “We, Robot” event. And Luke tells me he has found a little-known driverless-car supplier that he believes could play a key role in the AV revolution… and potentially benefit investors along the way.
He’s hosting a special strategy session on Monday, October 7, at 10 a.m. Eastern to reveal everything he knows about Tesla’s Cybercab… and show you how to get all the details on this small supplier.
For more details about this broadcast – and to save your seat – click here.
And stay tuned for tomorrow’s Smart Money. In it, Tom Yeung will share the company that he believes will be the real winner of the autonomous vehicle revolution.
Hint: It’s not Tesla.
Regards,
Eric Fry
