Dr. Jürgen Schmidhuber, a renowned scientist and AI researcher widely regarded as one of the pioneers in the field, originated key ideas behind today's transformers, LSTMs, and recursive self-improvement through his lab's work. He argues that true AGI remains bottlenecked by physical hardware, that today's AI data center investments are headed for a correction as open-source keeps pace with closed labs, and that the path to general intelligence runs through artificial curiosity and self-generated experimentation rather than internet data. He closes by reconsidering mainstream AI safety arguments and offers a sweeping vision of self-replicating robot societies eventually colonizing the solar system.
Dr. Jürgen Schmidhuber, a renowned scientist and AI researcher widely regarded as one of the pioneers in the field, originated key ideas behind today's transformers, LSTMs, and recursive self-improvement through his lab's work. He argues that true AGI remains bottlenecked by physical hardware, that today's AI data center investments are headed for a correction as open-source keeps pace with closed labs, and that the path to general intelligence runs through artificial curiosity and self-generated experimentation rather than internet data. He closes by reconsidering mainstream AI safety arguments and offers a sweeping vision of self-replicating robot societies eventually colonizing the solar system.
(0:00) Intro
(1:24) How Close Is Superhuman AI?
(2:27) Why ChatGPT Didn't Surprise Him
(3:21) The Path to Recursive Self-Improvement
(9:01) Will AI Takeoff Feel Sudden?
(11:02) Intelligence Means Efficiency
(12:32) Advice for Labs: Beyond Human-Biased Data
(17:10) Artificial Curiosity and the Theory of Fun
(21:33) When Do We Get the AI Scientist?
(24:07) AI Chemistry, MOFs, and Carbon Capture
(25:04) Robotics Reality Check
(28:23) The Data Center Bet: Overbuilt?
(31:48) Open Source vs. Closed Labs
(34:25) Does Being First to RSI Create a Moat?
(38:06) AI Safety and Alignment Skepticism
(43:44) Quickfire