A groundbreaking survey reveals that 76 percent of artificial intelligence researchers believe the tech industry's massive investments in scaling up AI systems are unlikely to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI).
The survey, conducted by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence among 475 AI researchers, challenges the prevailing strategy of major tech companies who continue pouring billions into expanding their AI infrastructure and computing power.
"About a year ago, it started to become obvious to everyone that the benefits of scaling in the conventional sense had plateaued," notes Stuart Russel, a UC Berkeley computer scientist involved in the report.
Despite this skepticism from the research community, tech giants persist with enormous spending. Microsoft plans to invest $80 billion in AI infrastructure in 2025, while venture capital funding for generative AI reached $56 billion in 2024. The energy demands are equally staggering, with companies like Microsoft securing entire nuclear power plants to fuel their AI data centers.
Recent developments support the researchers' position. Chinese startup DeepSeek demonstrated that its AI model could match leading Western chatbots at a fraction of the cost. OpenAI reportedly found diminishing returns with newer versions of GPT, their large language model.
Alternative approaches are emerging. OpenAI has experimented with "test-time compute," allowing AI models more processing time to select optimal solutions. DeepSeek developed a "mixture of experts" approach, using specialized neural networks instead of a single generalist model.
However, major tech companies appear committed to their scaling strategy. While industry giants continue investing heavily in computing infrastructure, smaller startups are forced to innovate more efficient solutions with limited resources.
This disconnect between researcher consensus and industry practice raises questions about the future direction of AI development and the efficient use of resources in pursuit of advanced artificial intelligence.