Predictions on the record
Explore Vernor Vinge's AGI and superintelligence timeline: 4 sourced statements from Jan 1983 to Aug 1, 2011. 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 · ASI
Expected 2003–2083
Superhuman intelligences should be created between twenty and one hundred years from now.
Source summary · not a verbatim quotation.
Vinge discussed computer science and biological science, leaving the substrate open. The forecast concerned a transition beyond human intelligence, including possible human-computer augmentation.
Prediction · AGI
Expected by 2023
Technology would create greater-than-human intelligence within the next thirty years.
Source summary · not a verbatim quotation.
The paper also supplied a wider surprise window of 2005–2030. It considered multiple paths, including AI, networks, human-computer interfaces and biological enhancement, so it was not solely an AI-model forecast.
Prediction · AGI
No arrival date specified
“I think we're ‘on track’.”
Asked whether his earlier 2005–2030 window remained plausible, he reaffirmed it. His singularity concept included several routes to superhuman intelligence, including AI and human enhancement.
Prediction · AGI
No arrival date specified
“I'd be surprised if the Technological Singularity hasn't happened by 2030.”
He explicitly excluded catastrophes such as global nuclear war. His threshold was the advent of superhuman intelligence, which he believed could arise through more than one technological route.