I. J. Good Predicts an Intelligence Explosion

For ages, it was easy to imagine and fear but impossibly difficult to concretely understand the capabilities of an "ultraintelligent machine" or what the ramifications would be for humanity, if we did indeed make one. Back in the 1950s and '60s, statistician I. J. Good all too presciently did the imagining part.

In 1965, Good, who had worked with Alan Turing at Bletchley Park, published “Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine” in Advances in Computers. Such a machine, able to far surpass the intellectual activities of any person, could also design better machines, setting off what Good called an intelligence explosion. “The first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make,” he wrote, provided it told humans how to keep it under control.

Good also consulted on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, whose shipboard computer HAL kills most of the crew. Personally, I find it comforting to find contemporary fears perfectly mirrored in decades past. It defangs our current fears a bit, or perhaps only confirms them.

Jasia Reichardt, writing for Le Random, wrote about Good and the ultraintelligent machine: “The Ultraintelligent Machine and Gaberbocchus Common Room”.