Predictions on the record
Explore I. J. Good's AGI and superintelligence timeline: 4 sourced statements from Jun 2, 1959 to 1970. Compare what was said, when it was said, and any predicted arrival date.
This is a curated record, not a complete history or a scorecard. AGI and ASI labels group related language; the original wording and caveats remain below. How we document claims.
Prediction · AGI
Expected 1972–1989
A useful artificial brain could take roughly 13 to 30 years, conditional on it being achieved within the next century.
Source summary · not a verbatim quotation.
Good gave a central estimate of 20 years multiplied or divided by 1.5, conditional on development within 100 years, which he considered more likely than not. A sufficiently capable machine could then design a better successor.
Prediction · AGI
Expected around 1978
An exceptional machine intellect capable of redesigning itself might emerge in 1978.
Source summary · not a verbatim quotation.
Speculation about educating a machine beyond exceptional human ability.
Prediction · AGI
Expected by 2000
It was more likely than not that an ultraintelligent machine would be built within the twentieth century.
Source summary · not a verbatim quotation.
Good defined the target as exceeding any human across intellectual activities, including the design of better machines. His proposed intelligence explosion followed that first machine; it was not a claim that contemporary systems had reached this level.
Prediction · AGI
Expected 1984–2004
An ultraintelligent machine might arrive around 1994, with ten years of uncertainty in either direction.
Source summary · not a verbatim quotation.
An approximate interval, not a firm deadline.