Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group Corp., speaks through the company’s annual general meeting in Tokyo, Japan, on Friday, June 20, 2024. Son sketched out ambitions to assist create AI hundreds of times smarter than any human, making his most grandiose pronouncements for the reason that Japanese conglomerate began taking steps to shore up its funds following a series of ill-timed startup bets.Â
Kosuke Okahara | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Artificial intelligence that’s 10,000 times smarter than humans shall be here in 10 years, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said on Friday, in a rare public appearance during which he questioned his own purpose in life.
Son laid out his vision for a world featuring artificial super intelligence, or ASI, as he dubbed it.
The CEO first talked about one other term — artificial general intelligence, or AGI — which broadly refers to AI that’s smarter than humans. Son said this tech is more likely to be one to 10 times smarter than humans and can arrive in the following three-to-five years, sooner than he had anticipated.
But when AGI just isn’t much smarter than humans, “then we needn’t change the lifestyle, we needn’t change the structure of human lifestyle,” Son said, in line with a live translation of his comments in Japanese, which were delivered during SoftBank’s annual general meeting of shareholders.
“But in the case of ASI it’s a very different story. [With] ASI, you will note an enormous improvement.”
Son discussed how the longer term will hold various ASI models that interact with one another, like neurons in a human brain. It will result in AI that’s 10,000 times smarter than any human genius, in line with Son.
SoftBank shares closed down greater than 3% in Japan, following the meeting.
Son is SoftBank’s founder, who rose to prominence after an early and profitable investment in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. He positioned SoftBank as a tech visionary with the 2017 launch of the Vision Fund, a large investment fund focused on backing tech firms. While a few of the bets were successful, there have been also many high-profile failures, resembling office sharing company WeWork.
After posting then-record financial losses at Vision Fund in 2022, Son said that SoftBank would go into “defense” mode and be more conservative with its investments. In 2023, the Vision Fund posted a recent record loss, with Son shortly after saying that SoftBank would now shift into “offense,” because he was excited in regards to the investment opportunities in AI.
Son has been broadly out of the general public eye since then.
He returned to the highlight on Friday to deliver a speech that was stuffed with existential questions.
“Two years ago, I get old, remainder of my life is restricted, but I have not done anything yet and I cried so hard,” Son said, suggesting he feels he hasn’t achieved anything of consequence so far.
He added that he had now found SoftBank’s mission, which is the “evolution of humanity.” He also said he has discovered his own purpose in life.
“SoftBank was founded for what purpose? For what purpose was Masa Son born? It might sound strange, but I believe I used to be born to comprehend ASI. I’m super serious about it,” Son said.
