NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang said he believes Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) has already been achieved on an episode of the Lex Fridman podcast, released on Monday

Fridman proposed defining AGI as an AI capable of building and running a billion-dollar tech company, asking whether that milestone could arrive within 5–20 years. Huang was direct: “I think it’s now. I think we’ve achieved AGI.”

Huang’s threshold doesn’t require permanence. In his view, an AI that builds a viral app, earns a billion dollars, and subsequently shuts down still qualifies — drawing a comparison to dot-com era companies that were short-lived but undeniably real.

“I couldn’t have predicted any of those companies at the time either,” he said, when asked what that breakthrough might look like.

Huang’s Previous Outlook

Huang’s recent assertion contrasts with his earlier prediction at the 2023 New York Times DealBook Summit, where he projected that AGI could develop within the next five years. Back then, his definition of AGI was a computer or software capable of executing tasks requiring human-level intelligence.

The top boss of the chip designer said AGI could eventually design chips like those made by Nvidia, noting that even today's H100 chips rely heavily on AI. However, he added that AI has not yet surpassed complex human intelligence.

Debate Over AGI Timeline

Ex-Tesla AI Chief Andrej Karpathy, however, believes AGI is still a decade away, stating that the industry is making too big a jump and is trying to pretend like this is amazing, and it’s not. “The models are amazing. They still need a lot of work,” he said.

His view sharply differs from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who told a German newspaper that he would be surprised if highly advanced AI models surpassing human capabilities don't emerge by 2030.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk has claimed that Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) will probably be the first to make AGI in humanoid/atom-shaping form, putting Tesla in the same competitive arena as dedicated AI labs like OpenAI and Google DeepMind.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by a Benzinga editor.

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