AI to Beat Humans in 2060, But Elon Musk Believes it Can by 2030

A study published by the Cornell University Library discusses when will artificial intelligence (AI) exceed and beat humans. The report includes a large survey of machine learning researchers about their beliefs on the progress of AI.

The integration of human and robots is undeniable today. Reports say that there's a 50 percent chance for AI or robots to beat humans in 45 years or in 2060. This was based on a survey conducted with more than 350 artificial intelligence researchers as respondents. But businessman and artificial intelligence enthusiast Elon Musk beg to disagree. He said AI might beat humans earlier than that.

This is because artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to master many intellectual activities and commands sooner. By 2024, AI could be better than humans when it comes to translating languages. By 2026, they could exceed humans when it comes to high-school essays, and by 2027, AI could be better than humans in driving trucks.

Based on the survey, AI or robots could be working for retail stores by 2031. By 2049, they could be writing a bestselling book and might even be able to autonomously perform surgeries by the year 2053. Respondents also believe that in the next 120 years, all human jobs will be automated. The survey was conducted by the University of Oxford and Yale University.

The result obviously has "far-reaching" social consequences according to Katja Grace from the Machine Intelligence Research Institute in Berkeley, California. Aside from the chances of AI beating humans in 2060, the respondents believe that there is only a 5 percent chance of computers bringing humans to extinction. They believe humans will still be present to deal with AI issues in the future.

"There is accumulating evidence that machines can overpower human intelligence in complex, though specific tasks," Eleni Vasilaki from the University of Sheffield in the U.K. said in a statement. "But there is little evidence that AI with human-like versatility will appear anytime soon."

Although anyone can foresee that AI may beat humans in the future when it comes to human tasks, businessman, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk believes it could be earlier than that. The business tycoon also funded his own OpenAI gym to help developers train their robots and artificial intelligence systems.

"Probably closer to 2030 to 2040 IMO. 2060 would be a linear extrapolation, but progress is exponential," Elon Musk said in a Tweet in response to New Scientist's post about how AI will beat humans in 2060.

Today, many AI systems already outperform humans but are only good at one task. Experts say they will be useless in some aspects unless retrained.