Tech Desk 
Apr 10, 2024
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has sent shivers down the spines of artificial intelligence (AI) watchers again, revising his prediction for the arrival of superhuman AI.
In a recent livestreamed interview on X (formerly known as Twitter), Musk stated his belief that AI surpassing human intelligence could be here by the end of next year, significantly faster than his previous estimate of 2029.
This accelerated timeline comes with a caveat — the ever-present challenge of securing sufficient resources.
Last year, the bottleneck was a shortage of Nvidia chips, crucial for training powerful AI models. This year, the focus has shifted to voltage transformers, another vital piece of the puzzle.
Read more: Did AI surprise Google? Here's what CEO Sundar Pichai says
Looking even further ahead, the 52-year-old billionaire anticipates the primary constraint within a couple of years to be the sheer amount of electricity needed to power these advanced AI systems.
In 2023, Musk expressed concerns about the potential dangers of superintelligence, proposing a five- to six-year window before we reach that point.
He even advocated for a pause in AI development if feasible, acknowledging the potential for a "Terminator" scenario.
However, with a pause seemingly unrealistic, Musk appears to be putting his faith in "xAI," a concept where explainable AI helps guide the development of more advanced and hopefully benevolent forms of superintelligence.
Adding fuel to the fire, Musk recently claimed that his company's chatbot Grok AI is already performing on par with OpenAI's GPT-4, another industry-leading large language model. With these advancements happening at a breakneck pace, Musk's revised timeline for superhuman AI raises both excitement and trepidation about what the future holds.
