SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son believes artificial general intelligence (AGI), or artificial intelligence that outperforms human intellect in practically every domain, will be realized within the next ten years. Son stated at the SoftBank World business conference that he believes AGI would be 10 times more intelligent than all human intellect combined. He emphasized the rapid advancement of generative AI, which he claims has already surpassed human intellect in several areas.

 

"It is wrong to say that AI cannot be smarter than humans as it is created by humans," he said. "AI is now self learning, self training, and self inferencing, just like human beings."

 

Son is known for several canny bets that have turned SoftBank into a tech investment giant as well as some bets that have spectacularly flopped. He also introduced the idea of "Artificial Super Intelligence" at the conference which he claimed would be realised in 20 years and would surpass human intelligence by a factor of 10,000, as per reuters.

 

"We must think about what we should do when this world comes," he said, adding that SoftBank had started using AI in all areas of its business.

 

For years, Son has spoken about the possibility of artificial general intelligence - sometimes referred to as "singularity" - to alter business and society, but he has never indicated when he believes it will occur. He also reiterated his belief in chip designer Arm as core to the "AI revolution".

 

Rene Haas, CEO of Arm, spoke at the conference via video and lauded the energy efficiency of Arm's designs, anticipating that they will be more sought after to power artificial intelligence.