Two years. That’s how much time we humans have before artificial intelligence becomes better thinkers and strategists than us, according to Ben Goertzel, CEO of SingularityNET, a decentralized AI marketplace.
While the AI industry is currently focused on developing automated agents to improve market efficiency, Goertzel suggested that, for the moment, people remain the main driver of high-level strategy. He noted that while his Quantium project can predict bitcoins in the short term volatility with high precision, long-term strategic thinking remains a purely human domain, for now.
“The human brain is better at taking the imaginative leap to understand the unknown,” Goertzel said in an interview at Consensus Hong Kong. It won’t last though. “We should enjoy it for a couple more years.”
Goertzel’s two-year countdown isn’t just an AI expert’s prediction: it’s a roadmap for the integration of SingularityNET’s decentralized AI with the broader blockchain ecosystem. As the distinction between human-powered markets and machine-driven markets blurs, Goertzel explained that the current bear cycle is simply a “stress test” for the infrastructure that will eventually host artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Goertzel said he has noticed a palpable shift in energy from speculative hype to technological utility. The prevailing mindset among conference attendees has changed, he said. The focus has shifted from “depressing” exchange rate fluctuations to the sophisticated integration of decentralized finance (DeFi) with traditional financial systems.
For Goertzel, this indicates that the technology has reached a stage where it works reliably for complex real-world applications.
Additionally, he highlighted the explosive growth of decentralized AI projects at the event as a sign that the industry is poised for a major convergence, where blockchain provides the data sovereignty and security needed for the next generation of artificial intelligence.
