Nvidia CEO says AI could pass human tests in five years

Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang on Friday said that artificial general intelligence could by some definitions arrive in as little as five years.

Huang, who heads the world’s leading maker of artificial intelligence chips used to create systems like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, was responding to a question at an economic forum held at Stanford University about how long it would take to achieve one of Silicon Valley’s long-held goals of creating computers that can think like humans.

Huang said that the answer largely depends on how the goal is defined. If the definition is the ability to pass human tests, Huang said, artificial general intelligence (AGI) will arrive soon.

As of now, AI can pass tests such as legal bar exams, but still struggles on specialized medial tests such as gastroenterology. 

But Huang said that in five years it should also be able to pass any of them.

But by other definitions, Huang said, AGI may be much further away, because scientists still disagree on how to describe how human minds work.

Huang said that more will be needed, but each chip will also get better over time, which acts to limit the number of chips needed.