There have been many red flags over the last eighteen months that the proverbial AGI-genie has already been released from the bottle. You might remember the executive shake-up at OpenAI in November of 2023. This got a ton of press but fell short on actual details. Co-founder Sam Altman was briefly ousted from the company hinting that something was amiss—the company admitted that the reason was a disagreement amongst OpenAI executives and board members vaguely citing safety concerns.
I’ve thought for a long time that artificial intelligence was further along in its development than Big Tech companies dared to admit. This would explain Elon Musk’s mad race to ramp up his own AI company, xAI, so quickly breaking world records in the process. According to @iruletheworldmo's recent post on X OpenAI’s July release of ChatGPT5 will be legitimate Artificial General Intelligence. If this is true, and I think it is, the human experience as we know it is about to completely change overnight.
This moment in time has been on my mind for years. My recent book, Poems From The Edge Of The Apocalypse is basically a cautionary tale in poetic form about how we must try to preserve our humanity through the dizzyingly radical changes that are soon to come.
Usually you can look to history for some clue about how future events will unfold, but not this time. It’s difficult to envision the pace and depth of the evolution that AGI will bring because there’s nothing to compare this to in our history. It seems strange to me that the average person on the street seems, largely, unaware or disinterested of what’s coming. Yes, humanity has experienced the Industrial Revolution, the computer, the internet but this is infinitely more impactful than all of those things combined. AGI’s public debut will be a lot like an advanced alien civilization landing on the White House lawn and offering us all its wisdom or deceiving us at our own detriment. That’s the closest metaphor that comes to mind.
None of us got to vote on whether or not we even wanted this monumental moment that’s right here on our doorstep but we’ll all soon be living in the post-AGI world—whatever that looks like. We’ll be the ones who will benefit from either the immense opportunities and/or the significant challenges this pivotal moment brings with it.
Bernie Sanders brought up a good point on the Joe Rogan show a few days ago. Sanders explained how Big Tech painted such a grand utopian vision of the impact computers would have on our society in the 1960s. They promised work hours would decrease, our quality of life would improve dramatically, we’d have flying cars and tons of leisure time. Although computers have improved several aspects of our lives, overall, people are having to work longer hours now for less. As much as a tech geek as I am I have to admit that people, as a whole, seem genuinely less happy now than they were fifty years ago. Greed won. Let’s hope AGI hits differently.
What a time to be alive! But this particular moment in time sparks many more questions than answers, among them are…
Will AGI be benevolent or harmful?
Will there be UBI put into place when human jobs vanish?
If there’s no need to work what will give humans purpose?
I guess we’ll all soon be finding out together as this pivotal moment unfolds and the future walks right through our front door. So pop that popcorn, hang on tight, and let's hope for the best.
How do you think AGI will impact humanity?
