Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group Corp., speaks during the company’s annual general meeting in Tokyo, Japan, Friday, June 20, 2024. Son outlined ambitions to help create AI thousands of times smarter than any man. making its grandest statements since the Japanese conglomerate began taking steps to shore up its finances after a series of ill-timed startup bets.Â
Kosuke Okahara | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Artificial intelligence that is 10,000 times smarter than humans will be here within 10 years, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said Friday, in a rare public appearance during which he questioned his purpose in life.
Son laid out his vision of a world containing artificial super intelligence, or ASI, as he called it.
The CEO first talked about another term – “artificial general intelligence, or AGI” which broadly refers to AI that is smarter than humans. Son said this technology is likely to be one to 10 times smarter than humans and will arrive in the next three to five years, sooner than he had predicted.
But unless AGI is much smarter than humans, “then we don’t need to change the way we live, we don’t need to change the structure of the human lifestyle,” Son said, according to a direct translation of his comments in . Japanese, which were delivered during SoftBank’s annual general meeting of shareholders.
“But when it comes to ASI, it’s a completely different story. [With] ASI, you will see a huge improvement.”
Son discussed how the future will hold different ASI models interacting with each other, like neurons in the human brain. This will lead to AI that is 10,000 times smarter than any human genius, according to Son.
Shares of SoftBank closed up more than 3% in Japan after the meeting.
Son is the founder of SoftBank, which rose to prominence after an early and profitable investment in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. He positioned SoftBank as a technology visionary with the 2017 launch of the Vision Fund, a massive investment fund focused on backing technology firms. While some of the bets were successful, there were also many high-profile failures, such as office-sharing company WeWork.
After posting then-record financial losses on the Vision Fund in 2022, Son said SoftBank would go into “defensive” mode and be more conservative with its investments. In 2023, the Vision Fund posted a new record loss, with Son shortly after saying SoftBank would now go “on the offensive” because he was excited about AI investment opportunities.
Son has been largely out of the public eye since then.
He returned to the spotlight on Friday to deliver a speech that was full of existential questions.
“Two years ago, I’m getting old, the rest of my life is limited, but I haven’t done anything yet and I’ve cried so much,” Son said, suggesting he feels he hasn’t achieved anything significant yet. today.
He added that he had now found SoftBank’s mission, which is “the evolution of humanity.” He also said that he has discovered his purpose in life.
“SoftBank was founded for what purpose? For what purpose was Masa Son born? It may sound strange, but I think I was born to realize ASI. I am very serious about it,” said Son.
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