Cost of AGI Delusion:Chasing Superintelligence US Falling Behind in Real AI Race

Summary

In early August, one day before releasing GPT-5, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted an image of the Death Star on social media. It was just the latest declaration by Altman that his new AI model would change the world forever. “We have discovered, invented, whatever you want to call it, something extraordinary that is going to reshape the course of human history,” Altman said in a July interview. He compared his company’s research to the Manhattan Project and said that he felt “useless” compared with OpenAI’s newest invention. Altman, in other words, suggested that GPT-5 would bring society closer to what computer scientists call artificial general intelligence: an AI system that can match or exceed human cognition, including the ability to learn new things.For years, creating AGI has been the holy grail of many leading AI researchers. Altman and other top technologists, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and computer science professors Yoshua Bengio and Stuart Russell, have been dreaming of constructing superintelligent systems for decades—as well as fearing them. And recently, many of these voices have declared that the day of reckoning is near, telling government officials that whichever country invents AGI first will gain enormous geopolitical advantages. Days before U.S. President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, for example, Altman told Trump that AGI would be achieved within his term—and that Washington needed to prepare.These declarations have clearly had an effect. Over the last two years, Democratic and Republican politicians alike have been discussing AGI more frequently and exploring policies that could unleash its potential or limit its harms. It is easy to see why. AI is already at the heart of a range of emerging technologies, including robotics, biotechnology, and quantum computing. It is also a central element of U.S.-China competition. AGI could theoretically unlock more (and more impressive) scientific advancements, including the ability to stop ot...