OpenAI unveils five-level AI scale, aims to reach level 2 soon

OpenAI has created a five-stage scale to track progress towards AGI. The company is already on the brink of the second stage, called the "reasoner", a source familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

OpenAI announced the new classification system at an employee meeting on Tuesday and plans to share it more widely soon, according to Bloomberg's source.

The five levels are:

• Level 1: Chatbots, natural language
• Level 2: Reasoners, can apply logic and solve problems at a human level
• Level 3: Agents, can perform additional actions
• Level 4: Innovators, can make new inventions
• Level 5: Can do the work of an entire organization

There is no universally agreed definition of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), but OpenAI's charter describes it as AI that can surpass humans in most economically valuable tasks, which corresponds to level 5.

At the meeting, managers told employees that OpenAI is on the cusp of level 2. These systems could solve problems as well as a human with a Ph.D., without additional tools.

OpenAI reportedly showed a GPT-4-based AI model that demonstrates some new capabilities approaching human-like thinking, possibly enhanced with Q* algorithms.

Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott recently said that next-generation AI could pass PhD qualification tests. OpenAI CTO Mira Murati predicts PhD-level AI will happen in 1.5 years.

According to Microsoft's AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman, it will take until GPT-6, two AI generations from now, before we have reliably acting AI agents, corresponding to level 3.

An Artificial Superintelligence (ASI), distinct from AGI, would have significantly enhanced capabilities. Whether and how AGI and ASI can be achieved remains uncertain and controversial among scientists.