The creation of digital superintelligence appears to be largely on track, even if it could be slightly delayed.
Elon Musk has said that digital superintelligence will be achieved by the end of this year, or latest by the end of next year. “I think we’re quite close to digital superintelligence,” he said at an event. “It may happen this year. If it doesn’t happen this year, next year for sure. A digital superintelligence defined as smarter than any human at anything,” he added.
Musk has made similar announcements in the past. Late last year, he’d predicted digital superintelligence by the end of 2025. “It is increasingly likely that AI will superset the intelligence of any single human by the end of 2025 and maybe all humans by 2027/2028. Probability that AI exceeds the intelligence of all humans combined by 2030 is ~100%,” he’d posted on X in December 2024.
Musk is now saying that if not this year, superintelligence will be a reality by next year. This could indicate a slight delay — the timeline seems to have shifted from 2025 to 2026 — but largely the development of superintelligence seems to be on track.
And if computers can be more intelligent than any single human, it could radically change the nature of knowledge work in the coming years. Knowledge work largely relies on human intelligence to complete tasks, and if AI systems can do them faster and cheaper than any human, these systems could displace humans from these roles. This in turn could lead to many downstream effects, which need to be studied and prepared for. It remains to be seen when the inflection point is, but Musk at least seems to believe that humanity is on track on its road to superintelligence.