AI Pioneer Ben Goertzel Predicts AGI Launch Within Three Years

Computer scientist Ben Goertzel, who has been involved in AI development for three decades, has long advocated for the decentralization of artificial intelligence. His vision, which he first articulated in the mid-1990s, is now gaining traction as the world approaches the advent of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

Goertzel, speaking at the Consensus conference, predicted that AGI, capable of thinking and generalizing beyond its programming, could be launched within the next one to three years. His project, SingularityNET, is at the forefront of this movement, creating a decentralized ecosystem for AI services. This initiative has secured significant partnerships and investments, including a $53 million modular supercomputer dedicated to decentralized AGI and a token merger with Ocean Protocol and Fetch.ai.

In 2024, Goertzel founded the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance, the world’s largest open-source initiative focused on decentralized AGI. He believes that SingularityNET and the ASI Alliance are among the few serious AGI research and development teams outside of Big Tech, particularly in the crypto space. These milestones, he argues, represent a return to the foundational principles of decentralization, which he has championed for decades.

Goertzel’s journey began in the mid-1990s when he wrote his first decentralized AI code using a beta version of Java. He founded his first AI company in New York in 1997, driven by the belief that AI should be decentralized, much like the internet of that era. However, the subsequent centralization of the internet, with the rise of companies like Google, Facebook, and Tencent, diluted this decentralized ethos.

Goertzel sees decentralization as crucial for the next leap into AGI, viewing it as a safeguard against the monopolization and misuse of technology. This principle is embedded in the architecture of SingularityNET, Hyperon, and the upcoming ASI Chain, a modular blockchain designed for decentralized AI. He argues that AGI must be decentralized from the ground up to benefit humanity rather than serve concentrated power.

Goertzel’s ideas on AI and decentralization gained broader attention after his appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience. His vision for a decentralized AI ecosystem aims to ensure that the post-AGI period is shaped by collaborative efforts, rather than dominated by centralized entities. He hopes that his initiatives, in collaboration with other decentralized teams, will be among the first to achieve this breakthrough.

Goertzel’s early exploration of decentralized money in the 1990s, though impractical at the time, foreshadowed the creation of Bitcoin. He acknowledged that the transaction times and costs of decentralized money were initially prohibitive, but the subsequent success of Bitcoin, despite its own limitations, validated his early skepticism. His anecdote about the darknet marketplace Silk Road highlights the complex and sometimes controversial nature of decentralized technologies.