WIRED REPORTS

Is AGI the future of finance?

5 minute read
 

Two sides of the same coin

Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is a hypothetical stage in the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) where it can match human ability in any cognitive task...

If that were to happen, everything would be touched by it, including finance. Not only would it unlock extraordinary progress behind the scenes, but it would also likely change the nature of financial transactions themselves, with “machine customers” accounting for an increasing share of global transactions. Yet experts are torn about whether AGI is really possible. Should the finance world see it as a pipe dream—or something more? We asked a thought leader on each side of the debate for their perspective...

AGI is inevitable—and we’re getting there bit by bit

As a society, we have been thinking about AGI for a long time. We’re at the point where AI can outperform humans on a single task, and now many in the field are pushing for human-like cognition and beyond. There are lots of great minds working on this, and we are advancing bit by bit.

It’s inevitable that we will get there. We already have the collective expertise among humans: We have the computational power, and we’re developing new learning algorithms and advanced mathematical systems.

AGI can come in various different forms with a range of different cognitive abilities. At Simuli, we’re working towards an agent that can understand the world in the way we understand it.

There are various important stepping stones as we move towards our version of AGI. For one, it needs to be able to learn indirectly from its surroundings. As human beings, we can learn about gravity by dropping a pin and watching it with our eyes; by closing our eyes and hearing the pin hit the floor; or by having the pin hit our hand on the way down. These three different sensory inputs all lead to the same conclusion. The next step with AI is developing a rich, cognitive set that can learn deeper concepts about its reality from the environment. We’re also looking for emergent cognitive phenomena—something like spontaneous types of thinking, creativity or new skills for which the developers didn’t explicitly program the agent.

AI is not currently able to do all of these things, but it will, and we’re already seeing it. So all industries—finance and beyond—need to be following progress carefully.”

We won't surmount the barriers of AGI—but AI will still be transformative

Some things that seem impossible today may eventually become possible, but there are also things that are so fundamentally impossible, it’s hard to even imagine how they could ever come to life.

AGI falls into the truly impossible category.

For AGI to exist, three major hurdles must be overcome. One, systems must learn faster than humans, which is a monumental challenge because human intelligence evolves at lightning speed. Two, we need to be able to capture all the data there is. We have vast amounts of untapped data—some we can't capture, some we don’t know exists and some we lack the mechanisms to access.

But most importantly, to evolve as rapidly and organically as humans, AGI needs a new generation of models. Current mathematical systems—built around rigid, black-and-white logic—are too limited.

AI’s capacity for errors and hallucinations, and its inability to understand true intent, exist because we're already bouncing at the boundaries of math. Currently, the math is probabilistic. The formulas determine the likelihood of an event occurring by analyzing the data. They must return an answer, and in the absence of enough data, they’ll make it up, which is called a hallucination. Even if we have enough data, they’ll never be able to show or understand emotion or intent.

To evolve in the way humans do, we therefore need to break through these probabilistic boundaries and move toward math that can thrive in the gray areas.

Nevertheless, the current advancements in generative AI will still have a major impact. In fields like financial services and payments, I believe AI will democratize access to data and insights, enabling everyone to have a personal banker, just as ride-share apps have made private drivers accessible to all.

Regardless of the AGI issue, AI is going to be transformative.”

SOURCES: WWW.JPMORGAN.COM/PAYMENTS-UNBOUND/SOURCES

IMAGE: GETTY IMAGES/VERTIGO3D

ILLUSTRATIONS: EMMA ROSE