AI is widely thought likely to end up becoming one of the biggest technological changes of our lifetimes, but Cognition CEO Scott Wu — whose company makes the coding platform Devin — feels it’s already there.
Cognition CEO Scott Wu says that AI is already the biggest technology shifts of our lives, even if all progress in AI research were to stop now. “I think we are truly on the cusp of the greatest technology shift in our lives. I think that’s already clear. (The) crazy thing is even if you froze all the capabilities today, and if there were no new research breakthroughs, no new discoveries, (it would still be the biggest thing),” he added.
Wu said that AI was already so advanced that people could spend the next few years fully utilizing its capabilities. “We’re going to grow products, figure out how to build the right experiences, get those out to users and meet users where they are, and all of these different verticals all over the world,” he said.
Wu said that AI was already bigger technology shift than the internet. “I think the biggest thing in my mind, the biggest technology shift in our lives has been the internet. Even if you froze all the capabilities today, I think AI already would be bigger than that,” he added.
Wu might have a point. While the internet had connected people across different parts of the planet, and given them unprecedented access to accessibility and knowledge, AI has already done something more consequential: it has, to a great degree, been able to replicate human intelligence. AI models seem to keep getting higher and higher scores on benchmarks across science, math, and even exams like ARC-AGI or Humanity’s last exam, which are specifically designed for AIs to be hard to pass. And this recreation of human intelligence could make AI a bigger technical achievement than the internet — while the internet had been created by human ingenuity, modern AI systems are already able to operate like the people who invented the internet. And for this reason alone, AI — even if there’s no further progress in the field — could end up making an even bigger impact on humanity than the creation of the internet.