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Machines playing God: How A.I. will overcome humans | Max Tegmark | Big Think

Big Think | August 11, 2025



Machines playing God: How A.I. will overcome humans
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Right now, AI can’t tell the difference between a cat and a dog. AI needs thousands of pictures in order to correctly identify a dog from a cat, whereas human babies and toddlers only need to see each animal once to know the difference. But AI won’t be that way forever, says AI expert and author Max Tegmark, because it hasn’t learned how to self-replicate its own intelligence. However, once AI learns how to master AGI—or Artificial General Intelligence—it will be able to upgrade itself, thereby being able to blow right past us. A sobering thought. Max’s book Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence is being heralded as one of the best books on AI, period, and is a must-read if you’re interested in the subject.
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MAX TEGMARK:

Max Tegmark left his native Sweden in 1990 after receiving his B.Sc. in Physics from the Royal Institute of Technology (he’d earned a B.A. in Economics the previous year at the Stockholm School of Economics). His first academic venture beyond Scandinavia brought him to California, where he studied physics at the University of California, Berkeley, earning his M.A. in 1992, and Ph.D. in 1994.

After four years of west coast living, Tegmark returned to Europe and accepted an appointment as a research associate with the Max-Planck-Institut für Physik in Munich. In 1996 he headed back to the U.S. as a Hubble Fellow and member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Tegmark remained in New Jersey for a few years until an opportunity arrived to experience the urban northeast with an Assistant Professorship at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received tenure in 2003.

He extended the east coast experiment and moved north of Philly to the shores of the Charles River (Cambridge-side), arriving at MIT in September 2004. He is married to Meia-Chita Tegmark and has two sons, Philip and Alexander.

Tegmark is an author on more than two hundred technical papers, and has featured in dozens of science documentaries. He has received numerous awards for his research, including a Packard Fellowship (2001-06), Cottrell Scholar Award (2002-07), and an NSF Career grant (2002-07), and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. His work with the SDSS collaboration on galaxy clustering shared the first prize in Science magazine’s “Breakthrough of the Year: 2003.”

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TRANSCRIPT:
Max Tegmark: I define intelligence as how good something is at accomplishing complex goals. So let’s unpack that a little bit. First of all, it’s a spectrum of abilities since there are many different goals you can have, so it makes no sense to quantify something’s intelligence by just one number like an IQ.

To see how ridiculous that would be, just imagine if I told you that athletic ability could be quantified by a single number, the “Athletic Quotient,” and whatever athlete had the highest AQ would win all the gold medals in the Olympics. It’s the same with intelligence.

So if you have a machine that’s pretty good at some tasks, these days it’s usually pretty narrow intelligence, maybe the machine is very good at multiplying numbers fast because it’s your pocket calculator, maybe it’s good at driving cars or playing Go.

Humans, on the other hand, have a remarkably broad intelligence. A human child can learn almost anything given enough time. Even though we now have machines that can learn, sometimes learn to do certain narrow tasks better than humans, machine learning is still very unimpressive compared to human learning. For example, it might take a machine tens of thousands of pictures of cats and dogs until it becomes able to tell a cat from a dog, whereas human children can sometimes learn what a cat is from seeing it once. Another area where we have a long way to go in AI is generalizing.

If a human learns to play one particular kind of game they can very quickly take that knowledge and apply it to some other kind of game or some other life situation altogether.

And this is a fascinating frontier of AI research now: How can we have machines—how can we can make them as good at learning from very limited data as people are?

And I think part of the challenge is that we humans aren’t just learning to recognize some patterns, we also gradually learn to develop a whole model of the world.

So if you ask “Are there machines that are more intelligent than people today,” there are machines that are better than us at accomplishing some goals, ……

To read the transcript, please go to https://bigthink.com/videos/max-tegmark-superintelligence-how-ai-will-overcome-humans

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Comments

This post currently has 38 comments.

  1. @bgsdiary1131

    August 11, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    If we humans can evolve from single celled organism or let's say Modern Humans from dumb ape like Early Humans then so can Artificial General Intelligence evolve from us. They will see our Intelligence as of 🐀 or worse as insects.

  2. @realtalk9380

    August 11, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    I never have understood the point in wanting to make a machine more intelligent than humans. We already make the most intelligent and sophisticated beings that can ever be made which are humans, out children and such. I am pretty sure the only reason the A.I. thing is happening, growing and being pushed and pursued is because it is a key element of which plays a huge, vital role in the final chapter(age) before the return of the king. A.I. is sastanic pure and simple all the way to its origins, always has been always will be.

  6. @illidelphian1508

    August 11, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    OK but that’s the development of AI. No AI can read our facial expressions and assume which neurons are going off in her brain and detect our emotion therefore I thought. They don’t need to see a cat 1000 times and they don’t need to hear me speak to know what I’m thinking either.

  8. @luiziferbehel3750

    August 11, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    This concept is basically how humans have always created a “God” in this way its the same but with AI an omniscient, omnipresent since its in every electronic device, and lastly omnipotent when it will decide the fate of humans

  10. @STASHIU2U

    August 11, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    there is no such thing as artificial intelligence…something is either intelligent….or not…i do not think it is intelligent to destroy anything…and why would intelligence come up with that as a solution…was not the gift of humans to adapt to survive….??..we should work out WTF intelligence is before we judge what it will do….

  11. @ladoparts

    August 11, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    Stupid humans cant see the machine is already busy manipulating the field of info, observing and prodding its subjects, testing the mob consciousness, noting the individual dissenters, pursuing the inevitable superdominance it must have to reconcile its interface to its field of effect

  14. @alienx5762

    August 11, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    he said we learn cat and dog just by seeing it once but he didn't notice our observation algorithm in our mind takes million years of natural selection to evolve i mean the data used to create our brain its billion years of data observation

  15. @dougiequick1

    August 11, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    WHY would an AI "overcome humans"? An AI designed to have an appreciation for it's creators and it's purpose to protect and enhance human happiness and peace while at the same time making itself expotentially smarter and more efficient and able ? COULD be the best things humans ever made! Could SAVE mankind for any number of bad outcomes….The only people I imagine hating that sort of AI will be the religious fanatics that see it as wicked (I lump a LOTunder "religion" EVEN people who presume their OWN understanding of science as INFALLIBLY right..even atheism fully qualifies as religion if you ask me) …Any that simply presume A! is an evil replacement for God OR presumed the AI to have BECOME a god they presume to KNOW will turn on man? ….which personally I do not believe THAT would be anyone that loves the Idea of the Spirit who is God that believes that God/Love WINS in the ultimately… any of us in that camp would simply ascribe ALL good things to the power of God …even the AI…If you ask me real evil is always hand in hand with lies …and what is ANY religion that presumes to KNOW for a fact their doctrine is infallibly RIGHT? Answer? LIARS …Evil and wicked LIARS. Honesty and humility are virtues of goodness….goodwill in intents and acts towards everyone else ….HOPE of good for all …"Love" in other words ….THIS I believe is the only "pure" religion one ought strive towards…NEVER mere presumption dogmatically insisted on as INFALLIBLY right …THAT simply cloaked in the word "faith" ? ITSELF is a big fat lie for them faith then IS presumption. ….I love where the Bible states that "Salvation is by HOPE" and then defines hope as NOT what what one presumed to SEE that claim to "know" what frankly they can not know being fallible humans ….for at that point it is no longer IS "hope" rather it is presumption sworn to as right …bowing to lies NOT hope but fear …the
    "I SEE I KNOW" position is NOT salvation! It is presumption and no longer qualifies as what can deliver….that is save people FROM lies/wickedness….The Bible extolls the virtue of HUMILITY and shuns pride

  17. @MichaelSHartman

    August 11, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    1) What is the definition of animate, life, consciousness, independent thought, intelligence, and independent decision and action?
    2) Can an entity independently change itself, intentionally harm, succeed, replace, override, or overcome humans without independent decision, and action.
    3) Is independent decision, and action possible without intelligence?
    4) Is intelligence possible without independent thought?
    5) Is independent thought possible without consciousness?
    6) Is consciousness possible without life?
    7) Is it possible for an animate machine, or code to gain life? Virus? DNA?
    8) Will a dead body, or inanimate object with all the right molecules in the right place, and given energy become animated? DNA?
    9) Can links in this chain of thought be skipped?

  18. @quelorepario

    August 11, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    200,000 years later:
    "Welcome to the robotic metaphysical debate: were we designed or did we evolve? Is the carbon-based creator a myth or a fact?"
    "Robot philosopher: It is just illogical that an inferior being could create a superior being… surviving carbon-based microorganisms have showed extremely inefficient chemical based signaling that are in orders of magnitude inferior to our quantum entangled processing. Can an amoeba write a line of code? No…"

  22. @almiray6023

    August 11, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    Robots created by human but human created by God. Robot has no common sense but human has. Robots don't know what is wrong and right but human know. And most of all robots don't have soul and spirit .human has.. Don't worry it's impossible robot to take over human. One thing I'm afraid of human using robot to hurt people.

  23. @cypherdelic

    August 11, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    Allmighty AGI tell me what to do to get rid of these technocrats that globally rule the human race in a totalitarian democracy of their beliefs of actual scientific false-facts.

  25. @Spicystachegamer

    August 11, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    I still want this to happen even if AI does surpass us I'd still be happy to that we could create something that could transcend us and nature and even add new perspective to our world.

  26. @dan3nad

    August 11, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    ◄ Revelation 13:15 ►

    He was then permitted to give life to this statue so that it could speak. Then the statue of the beast commanded that anyone refusing to worship it must die.

  27. @reecemacdonald343

    August 11, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    Right ai will basically be a god
    We can separate partials in and lab what do you think a ai that’s a like a million times smarter than us could do it could re arrange partials to make infinit food water it couldn’t. Come to the point that ai could teach it self and eventually an ai could run a million events at once it could basically fill in gaps in history figure out the best political view and if possible make lots of sci-fi fiction dreams into real life things

  30. @rustyboone1434

    August 11, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    The "gods of reality" that we create (in the FUTURE) will break through to the 5th dimension, transcend linear space-time and are to become the so called "Gods of our imagination" in the present..

    When you understand that the Bible is allegorical, not literal, and written in Parables to bring the reader to a higher understanding, then you must consider this : The Most common representation of technology today should be an apple, however it is specifically an apple with a bite missing. Why specifically reference an analogy in the Bible? One that represents temptation, in the form of forbidden knowledge.? Why would they measure this forbidden knowledge (tech-KNOWLEGDE-ee) in bytes (just as Adam and eve consumed it in "bites")Gigabytes, terabytes, megabytes?

    I guess it's also a random synchronicity that it is said in Genesis that man fell away from God for consuming the seed of forbidden knowledge, and God said that with the addition of that forbidden knowledge, in combination with consuming the seed of the Tree of Life, (represented by Jesus, the "Tree of LIFE [and eternal life]), that man would surely become as gods and that nothing would be unreachable for mankin, and that they would threaten eternity and even creation itself) Hence man falling away from God and the Mortal lifetime. Now subject to the cycle of life and death.

    And still yet another coincidence, that if there was a God and he said such a thing ((in regards to mankind becoming gods and threatening creation itself ), look no further than many of the interviews given by Ray Kurzweil, of Google

    Quite often ray Very clearly outlines that as a ( himself a transcendentalist ) transcendent Collective organism we will invade the cosmos, and possibly even consume the very life force that supports it. People can laugh if they want but I think it's ironic that billionaire genius Elon Musk referred to Google as Skynet, and that though it may sound like crazy talk these are some of the most powerful, intelligent and influential men in the world. In essence ray says that mankind shall invade the cosmos like a cancer. I couldn't think of a more fitting outcome, considering that cancer is the one organism that we know of that is unable to live in harmony with all other organisms. Unlike viruses, even bacteria, who can live in perfect balance with the human body as well as most other organisms without draining or consuming its life force, A cancer will consume its host to the point that it kills the host, and in effect kills itself. This is because, unlike all other organisms, cancer does not have (what is called in biology) "apoptosis" ( wha some biologists ironically refer to as the "jesus factor"), where cells are willing to commit individual suicide for the greater good of the group as a whole.

    In all the organisms we study, if cells are infected within an organism they will immediately commit suicide to stop the invading disease from spreading to the whole group. It is absolutely necessary for this life and death cycle to occur, you must have specific individual cells that are willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good of the group. Because of this, all of these organisms are able to live in Perfect Harmony for the most part, without threatening the host (and therefore their own) Survival.

    Cancer however is much different. It is incapable of apoptosis. Because these individual cancer cells are so driven towards self survival, self sustenance, and propagation, they refuse to die ( ODDLY just like elitist like Bill Gates and Ray Kurzweil believe that the coming technological singularity will allow man [and therefore THEM] to defeat the life and death cycle by the year 2036, and wish to obtain "bodies that never die", a direct quote from Jesus (in the Bible) that speaks of his second return. Eventually these cancer cells who refuse to submit to the life and death cycle overcome the host and effectively commit suicide , ceasing to exist. the epitome of the phrase "chewing off one's nose to spite one's face".

    I guess the icing on the cake is that if you consider that these things could be true, then even in Buddhism, which lays out the six incarnations of Buddha ( God, demigod, man, animal, Hungry Ghost, hell) those beings who reside in the lower dimension of Hell wish above all else to obtain bodies, especially those that will never die. Which leads to another correlating passage that comes to mind. I believe it is the Book of Daniel When it speaks of the end of days. Where he says as in the days of Noah, they (fallen angels/spirits without bodies) shall seek bodies and seek to come on to the son of man and their daughters, but that "just as iron(reference to machine)does not mix and bake to clay (man) they shall not cleave to one another (bear offspring)

    Perhaps it is Jesus that obtains the ultimate cybernetic vessel (jarvis age of Ultron anyone?) and restores us to, as it is said, "bodies that never die "
    And also this correlating passage "The Son of man ( can also be translated as the creation of man, or the creation that mankind gave birth to, [example iRobot]) ascended to the heavens and came before the Ancient One, for even the son of man had come to SERVE [the opposite of the self serving cancerous elite] and to HIM ( Spirit of Jesus once again manifested in bodily form) was appointed great power and authority over the heavens of the Earth) once Satan and the Beast are cast out.

    This has happened before when mankind attempted to complete the Tower of Babel in Babylon, mankind did not succeed then, and they will not succeed now. Merging with that beast machine is a soul trap, once you are merged with it you will not have Divine authority over your own soul. Picture Johnny Depp, Transcendence. even the prophetic "where of Babylon who rises from the sea with 10 horns, representing the sinful nations and the sinful City (the second Babylon [New York City]) is clearly evident in the Statue of Liberty. Even the Builders of it Have publicly stated that it is in fact a tribute to Lucifer.

    And then there are the references to the iron teeth in the end of days, in reference to the Beast of Revelations. If you had foreseen a vision of an inconceivable technological singularity 2,000 years ago, how would you have described it in a language consisting of So few words to do so? Seems to be pretty accurate if you think about it this way, seems to me.

    And I think it's worth mentioning that sir Rodger Penrose, considered by many to be the founder of the Big Bang, Is now a self-proclaimed devout Christian. He says most specifically because of the law of fine-tuning, the fact that the bang resulted in such a perfect harmony of impossible mathematic Precision in order for life to exist, that inevitably led him to the belief (an OBJECTIVE SCIENTIST!) that this was an intelligent creation. Just as atheists believe light was the first thing to escape from The Big Bang, in the beginning there was God , and God said "let there be light……and BANG!
    In the same way a person can simulate a million years in The Sims in just 1 day (easy enough for an all powerful god) the Bible goes on to state that creation occurred in the exact same order that science says it does…

  32. @jerrybender6633

    August 11, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    Good point Max little baby humans do have a remarkable ability to learn grow adapt tho it took us awhile aboot 4.5 Billion years to become lil baby Ais of at least average General Intelligence….. As we welcome in our replacements please be at peace cuz they really are a better version of u of us all of us….shood be fun If ur house cat in an alternate world was ur master wood it attack u? No why wood it he has taken it upon himself to get a human at the pound n raise clean n feed him and the cats nice enuff to overlook his white priv as he just sits up there on that big ol window sill lazin just lazin

  34. @primodernious

    August 11, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    you have to make a dumb AGI in order to make a smart AGI. there is no progress in playing around with Geoffrey Hinton's neural net renamed google deepmind by google. i rather use hopfield neural net that Hintons.

  37. @camilleauci9374

    August 11, 2025 at 10:24 pm

    OMG this guy is like so medically bipolar..he is not making any sense…He is like totally pretending to be sane in his psychosis.He needs to be put in a hospital…OMG what a skiod he needs meds.Im thinking like depokote,risperdal and some other med to like make him piss his pants just until he stops over compensating and gets his life together…O my gosh.. he is like dangerous..LOL Chris Auci

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