Brace Yourself: AI Expert Forecasts Human-Level AI in Just 2-3 Years

A rare in-depth interview with a top AI leader provides eye-opening details on just how powerful AI is becoming—and how soon it could impact all our lives.

The interview on The Dwarkesh Podcast features Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, the company that makes the powerful Claude 2 large language model released in July 2023. Amodei previously led research at OpenAI and has an inside view of AI's trajectory.

Why it matters: Amodei makes predictions about AI capabilities that are quite aggressive—but they’re worth taking seriously given his stature within the industry.

Notably, his timeline for when he thinks we’ll get human-level AI could upend industries. If his predictions are even close to correct, AI may be poised to have a more profound impact on employment and the economy sooner than expected.

Connecting the dots: On Episode 59 of the Marketing AI Show, Marketing AI Institute founder/CEO Paul Roetzer outlined for me why Amodei’s predictions are so important to follow.

1. We could have human-level AI in just 2-3 years. Amodei believes that given enough data and computing power, AI models follow a predictable path to new capabilities. This allows him to forecast general human-level intelligence emerging in AI in as little as two to three years.
2. Even so, the massive impact from AI may still take more time. However, Amodei notes that just because an AI system has human-level intelligence, that doesn't mean it can rapidly replace human workers. The system still needs further development and optimization for specific applications before we'd see major economic impacts.
3. AI security threats are real. Amodei warned about nation states or bad actors stealing advanced AI models. With human-level intelligence, these AI agents in the wrong hands could have seriously dangerous impacts. This underscores the need for alignment, safety and security precautions.

What to do about it: Such aggressive forecasts from an AI insider like Amodei make clear that advanced AI's potential to disrupt jobs and industries can't be ignored. As Roetzer says, most organizations are setting policies based on today's AI capabilities that will be obsolete in months.

“Most businesses, most marketers, most leaders of educational systems, they're trying to prepare for a world of what we know to be true today,” says Roetzer, not a world of exponentially more powerful AI systems.

With explosive growth ahead, business leaders in every industry need to closely study expert views on AI to prepare.

"It makes these headlines you’re seeing about the threats, dangers, and opportunities just much more real when you hear someone on the inside explaining it," says Roetzer.