How I’m preparing for AGI and ASI

Advising organizations from Apple to the US Gov, & cited in the new G7 AI doc.†
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This piece has been archived from my full report published in 2024, The sky is steadfast.

How I’m preparing for AGI and ASI

In my mid-2024 report, I talked about Avital Balwit—25-year-old Rhodes Scholar, Future of Humanity Institute researcher, and current Chief of Staff to the CEO at Anthropic. Avital is already counting down to her own retirement by 2027.1https://lifearchitect.ai/my-last-three-years-of-work/

I am 25. These next three years might be the last few years that I work. I am not ill, nor am I becoming a stay-at-home mom, nor have I been so financially fortunate to be on the brink of voluntary retirement. I stand at the edge of a technological development that seems likely, should it arrive, to end employment as I know it…

The economically and politically relevant comparison on most tasks is not whether the language model is better than the best human, it is whether they are better than the human who would otherwise do that task… 

The shared goal of the field of artificial intelligence is to create a system that can do anything. I expect us to soon reach it.

Throughout 2024, I’ve been doing my best to prepare for the advent of AI that performs at or above human level across most fields, and the likely impact to the world. There’s not actually that much we can do to get ready, except wait. Here’s a quick look at what I’m focusing on, noting that this is not advice for anyone except myself:

  1. Stay alive. For me, this means regular gym, healthy eating, and my usual no alcohol/smoking/etc. As a sidenote that I articulated in The Memo edition 1/May/2024,2https://lifearchitect.substack.com/p/the-memo-1may2024 for some of my peers, there is a very real risk that those designing AI may need to take extra security measures to stay alive. I do know that neural network pioneer Prof Geoffrey Hinton is ‘tidying up his affairs’,3https://www.youtubetranscript.com/?v=UvvdFZkhhqE&t=1415 but I don’t know what that looks like specifically.
  2. Focus on real friends and family. AI will enhance our ability to genuinely commune with each other and put ourselves in others’ shoes far more than social media or cell phones have done. But for now, basking in the humanness of real-life social connections is a priority for me.
  3. Enjoy interests. From my decades-old hobby of fragrances, to new interests like archery, ‘being human’ might just be on its last legs, as we move into an entirely new era. I enjoy exploring and discovering things that I may not be very good at, and immersing myself in them for the sake of enjoyment.
  4. Live in a technology-centric region. Early distribution of AI will depend on location (among other things). We’ve seen how many of the latest AI models have been banned from countries across the EU. Getting access to humanoids will be a priority for many, and I expect that megacities like Shanghai and Los Angeles will be among the first destinations to receive these.
  5. Don’t purchase property. More than a decade ago, I published an article called ‘Why I’ll never buy a house’.4https://lifearchitect.ai/articles/property/ While the reasons then were unrelated to AGI, sitting in the early stages of the Singularity further cements this position. If we leapfrog just a few years into the future, the optimizations afforded by AGI will bring more luxury, effectiveness, and freedom in where and how we live. Slaving away now for a brick-and-mortar house (not to mention the immorality of high-interest mortgages) will look absurd very soon.
  6. Keep informed. The progress of AI is exponential, not linear. While it’s not possible to read every AI paper (a new one is still published about every eight minutes),5https://lifearchitect.ai/the-sky-is-comforting/ or download every model (a new one is deployed every four minutes), my full-time ‘job’ remains tracking and analyzing the major milestones in the lead-up to full artificial superintelligence. And the best way to keep informed is still to join the world’s leading organisations—from Alphabet to Yandex, and many others—at The Memo: LifeArchitect.ai/memo.

We continue to live through the most exciting time in the history of humanity. We are sitting in the early stages of the technological singularity. Progress is increasing exponentially, and the improvements are visceral. You can rely on AI technology continuing this trend through 2025.

No matter how many people scream that it’s falling, and no matter how many old people yell at its clouds, the sky remains resolute. It’s there when we wake: enveloping us, protecting us, and bringing a new dawn. The sky is steadfast.

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by Dr Alan D. Thompson · Be inside the lightning-fast AI revolution.
Informs research at Apple, Google, Microsoft · Bestseller in 147 countries.
Artificial intelligence that matters, as it happens, in plain English.
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Alan D. Thompson is a world expert in artificial intelligence, advising everyone from Apple to the US Government on integrated AI. Throughout Mensa International’s history, both Isaac Asimov and Alan held leadership roles, each exploring the frontier between human and artificial minds. His landmark analysis of post-2020 AI—from his widely-cited Models Table to his regular intelligence briefing The Memo—has shaped how governments and Fortune 500s approach artificial intelligence. With popular tools like the Declaration on AI Consciousness, and the ASI checklist, Alan continues to illuminate humanity’s AI evolution. Technical highlights.

This page last updated: 23/Feb/2025. https://lifearchitect.ai/how-im-preparing-for-agi-and-asi/↑