The world as we know it will be evolving to a place where 80 percent of human jobs will be wiped out.

From Rio De Janeiro comes an AFP story that artificial intelligence (AI) could replace 80 per cent of human jobs in the coming years. But that is a good thing, says United States-Brazilian researcher Ben Goertzel, a leading AI guru.

56 year old Goertzel, is a mathematician, cognitive scientist and famed robot-creator. He is founder and chief executive of SingularityNET, a research group he launched to create “Artificial General Intelligence,” or AGI – artificial intelligence with human cognitive abilities.

Mr Goertzel was speaking at the Web Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the world’s biggest annual technology conference. He told AFP in an interview that AGI is just years away . He spoke out against recent efforts to curb artificial intelligence research.

If machines are to really be as smart as people and to be as agile, then they need to be able to take big leaps beyond their training and programming., he said. “ I think there’s reason to believe we’re years rather than decades from getting there.

Speaking on the debate around AI such as ChatGPT and its risks, the robot maker said “I don’t think we should pause it. These are very interesting AI systems, but they’re not capable of becoming like human level general intelligences, because they can’t do complex multi-stage reasoning.” He pointed out that such systems  can’t invent wild new things outside the scope of their training data.

While he agreed that ChatGPT  can also spread misinformation, he challenged the those who were are saying we should pause AI. Why haven’t we banned the internet? Because the internet also spreads misinformation.

“I think we should have a free society. And just like the internet shouldn’t be banned, we shouldn’t ban this,” he said.

Mr Goertzel estimated that you could probably obsolete maybe 80 per cent of jobs that people do, even without having an AGI. Systems using artificial general intelligenceh are going to follow in the next few years.

“I don’t think it’s a threat. I think it’s a benefit. People can find better things to do with their life than work for a living. Pretty much every job involving paperwork should be automatable. I think education will also be an amazing market for humanoid robots, as well as domestic help,” he said.

He pointed out that regulations need to be developed by society. Ais should be developed to do good things. And the governance of the AIs to be somehow participatory among the population. The problem is that the companies funding most of the AI research don’t care about doing good things. They care about maximising shareholder value.

Prepared by newsnet intern Simon Marbaniang from available news reports

  Artificial Intelligence, Ben Goertzel