---
title: 'A.I. ‐ Humanity''s Final Invention?'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=fa8k8IQ1_X0'
video_id: 'fa8k8IQ1_X0'
date: 2026-06-18
duration_sec: 0
---

# A.I. ‐ Humanity's Final Invention?

> Source: [A.I. ‐ Humanity's Final Invention?](https://youtube.com/watch?v=fa8k8IQ1_X0)

## Summary

This video explores the evolution of intelligence from simple flatworms to humans, and then examines the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI). It argues that AI, particularly Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), could be humanity's final invention, with the potential to either solve our greatest challenges or lead to our downfall.

### Key Points

- **Definition of Intelligence** [0:19] — Intelligence is defined as the ability to learn, reason, acquire knowledge and skills, and use them to solve problems. It is the source of human power.
- **Earliest Brains** [0:52] — The earliest brains were in flatworms 500 million years ago. It took hundreds of millions of years for complex brains to evolve.
- **Shift to General Intelligence** [1:55] — Homo erectus, 2 million years ago, saw the world as something to be understood and transformed, marking a shift to general intelligence.
- **AI Beats Chess Champion** [4:51] — AI started as narrow, specialized systems. In 1997, an AI beat the world chess champion, proving machines could surpass humans in specific tasks.
- **Rise of Self-Learning AI** [6:53] — Self-learning AI, using neural networks and machine learning, can write their own code and improve themselves. In 2018, an AI learned chess in 4 hours by playing against itself.
- **ChatGPT's Capabilities** [7:21] — ChatGPT, trained on nearly the entire internet, can handle language better than most people, but remains a narrow intelligence.
- **The Promise of AGI** [9:21] — AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) would be as capable as humans in all mental tasks. Most researchers think it will arrive this century.
- **Intelligence Explosion** [12:29] — An AGI could be copied endlessly, work 24/7, and think faster than humans, potentially leading to an 'intelligence explosion' and a superintelligent entity.

## Transcript

humans rule Earth without competition
but we're about to create something that
may change that our last invention the
most powerful tool weapon or maybe even
entity artificial super
intelligence this sounds like science
fiction so let's start at the beginning
intelligence is the ability to learn
reason acquire Knowledge and Skills and
use them to solve problems intelligence
is power and we're the species that
exploited it the most so much so that
Humanity broke the game of Nature and
took control but the journey there
wasn't straightforward for most animals
intelligence costs too much energy to be
worth it still if we track intelligence
in the tree of species over time we can
see lots of diverse forms of
intelligence emerge the earliest brains
were in flatworms 500 million years ago
just a tiny cluster of neurons to handle
basic body functions it took hundreds of
millions of years for species to
diversify and become more complex life
conquered New environments gained new
senses and had to contend with Fierce
competition over resources but in nature
all that matters is survival and brains
are expensive so for almost all animals
a narrow intelligence fit for a narrow
range of tasks was enough in some
environments animals like birds
octopuses and mammals evolved more
complex neural structures for them it
paid off to have more energy consuming
skills like Advanced navigation and
communication until 7 billion years ago
the hominins emerged we don't know why
but their brains grew faster than their
relatives something was different about
their intelligence very slowly it turned
from narrow to General from a
screwdriver to a multi-tool able to
think about diverse Problems 2 million
years ago homo erector saw the world
differently from anyone before as
something be understood and transformed
they controlled fire invented tools and
created the first culture we probably
emerged from them around 250,000 years
ago with an even larger and more complex
brain it enabled us to work together in
large groups and to communicate complex
thoughts we used our intelligence to
improve our lives to ask how things work
and why things are the way they are with
each Discovery we asked more questions
and pushed forward Ward preserving what
we learned outpacing what evolution
could do with genes knowledge Builds on
knowledge progress was slow at first and
then sped up exponentially agriculture
writing medicine astronomy or philosophy
exploded into the world 200 years ago
science took off and made us even better
at learning about the world and speeding
up progress 35 years ago the internet
age began today we live in a world made
to suit our needs created by us us for
us this is incredibly new we forget how
hard it was to get here how enormous the
steps on the intelligence ladder were
and how long it took to climb them but
once we did we became the most powerful
animal in the world in a
heartbeat but we may be in the process
of changing this we're building machines
that could be better at the very thing
that gave us the power to conquer the
planet Humanity's final invention
artificial
intelligence artificial intelligence or
AI is software that performs mental
tasks with a computer code that uses
silicon instead of neurons to solve
problems in the beginning AI was very
simple lines of code on paper mere
proofs of concept to demonstrate how
machines could perform mental tasks only
in the 1960s did we start seeing the
first examples of what we would
recognize as AI a chatbot in 1964
approach program to sort through
molecules in
1965 slow specialized systems requiring
experts to use them their intelligence
was extremely narrow built for a single
task inside a controlled environment the
equivalent of flat worms 500 million
years ago doing the minimum amount of
mental work progress in AI research
paused several times when researchers
lost hope in the technology but just
like changing environments create new
niches for Life the world around AI
changed between 1950 and 2000 computers
got a billion times faster while
programming became easier and widespread
in 1972 AI could navigate a room in 1989
it could read handwritten numbers but it
remained a fancy tool no match for
humans until in 1997 an AI shocked the
World by beating the world champion in
chess proving that we could build
machines that could surpass us but we
calmed ourselves because a chest spot is
quite stupid not a flatworm but maybe a
bee only able to perform a specialized
narrow task but within this narrow task
it's so good that no human will ever
again beat AI a chess as computers
continued to improve AI became a
powerful tool for more and more tasks in
2004 it drove a robot on Mars in 2011 it
began recommending YouTube videos to you
but this was only possible because
humans broke down problems into easyto
digest chunks that computers could solve
quickly until we taught AIS to teach
themselves rise of the self-learning
Machines this is not a technical video
so we're massively oversimplifying here
in a nutshell the sheer power of
supercomputers was combined with the
almost endless data collected in the
information age to make a new generation
of ai ai experts began drastically
improving forms of AI software called
neur neural networks enormously huge
networks of artificial neurons that
start out being bad at their tasks they
then used machine learning which is an
umbrella term for many different
training techniques and environments
that allows algorithms to write their
own code and improve themselves the
scary thing is that we don't exactly
know how they do it and what happens
inside them just that it works and that
what comes out the other end is a new
type of AI a capable black box of code
the these new AIS could Master complex
skills extremely quickly with much less
human help they were still narrow
intelligences but a huge step up in 2014
Facebook AI could identify faces with
97% accuracy in 2016 an AI beat the best
humans in the incredibly complex game of
Go in 2018 a self-learning AI learned
chess in 4 hours just by playing against
itself and then defeated the best
specialized chess bot since then machine
learning has been applied to reading
image processing solving tests and much
more many of these AIS are already
better than humans for whatever narrow
task they were trained but they still
remained a simple tool AI still didn't
seem that big of a deal for most people
and then came the chatbot chat GPT the
work that went into it is massive it
trained on nearly everything written on
the internet to learn how to handle
language which it now does better than
most people it can summarize translate
and help with some math problems it's
incredibly more broad than any other
system just a few years ago not crushing
any single Benchmark but order of them
at once many large tech companies are
spending billions to build powerful
competitors AI is already transforming
customer service banking Healthcare
marketing copyrighting creative spaces
and more AI generated content has
already taken hold of social media
YouTube and news websites elections are
expected to be inundated by Propaganda
and
misinformation no one is sure how much
good or harm can come from adopting AI
everywhere change is scary there will be
winners and losers one of the biggest
questions governments and corporations
have now is how to manage the transition
to an AI boosted economy all these
potential gains or risks are just the
result of today's AI chat gpt's
intelligence is a major step up but it
remains narrow one it can write a great
essay in seconds it doesn't understand
what it's writing but what if the AIS
stopped being
narrow General AI what makes humans
different from current AI is our general
intelligence humans can technically
absorb any piece of knowledge and start
working on any problem we're great at
many very different skills and tasks
from playing chess to writing or solving
science puzzles not equally of course
some of us are experts in some fields
and beginners in others but we can
technically do all of them in the past
AI was narrow and able to become good at
one skill but was rather bad in all the
others simply by building faster
computers and pouring more money into AI
training will get us new more powerful
generations of AI but what is the next
step for AI is to become a general
intelligence like us an
AGI if the AI improvement process
continues as it has been it's not
unlikely that AGI could be better in
most or even all skills that humans can
do we don't know how to build AGI how it
will work or what it will be able to do
since narrow AIS today are capable of
mastering one mental task quickly HGI
might be able to do the same with all
mental tasks so even if it starts out
stupid and HGI might be able to become
as smart and capable as a human while
this sounds like science sence fiction
most AI researchers think this will
happen sometime this Century maybe
already in a few years humanity is not
ready for what will happen next not
socially not economically not morally
earlier we defined intelligence as the
ability to learn reason acquire
Knowledge and Skills and use them to
solve problems all things humans excel
at an AGI as intelligent as even an
average human would already disrupt
modern civilization because they're not
Bound by the same limitations as we are
today's AIS like chat gbt already think
and solve the tasks they were made for
at least 10 times faster than even very
skilled humans maybe AGI will be slower
but it may also be faster maybe much
faster and since HGI are software you
could copy them endlessly as long as you
have enough storage and run them in
parallel there are 8 million scientists
in the world now imagine an AI copied a
million times and put to work imagine 1
million scientists working 24/7 thinking
10 times faster than humans without
being distracted only focused on the
task they've been given what if suddenly
HGI could do all intelligence-based jobs
in the world from interpreting law to
coding to creating animated YouTube
videos better faster and much cheaper
than humans would whoever controls this
AGI suddenly own the economy
and thinking bigger human progress is
our intelligence applied to problems so
what could a million agis
achieve solve fundamental questions of
science like dark energy invent new
technology that gives us Limitless
energy fix climate change cure aging and
cancer but then again sadly humans apply
their intelligence not just for the
benefit of all what if the agis are
tasked to guide drones or pull the
triggers in war or to engineer a virus
that only kills people with green eyes
or to create the most profitable social
media so addictive that people starve in
front of their screens the creation of
AGI could reasonably be as big of an
event as taming fire or electricity and
give whoever invents it equally as much
power but now let's go one step further
what if the potential of AGI doesn't
stop here intelligence explosion
intelligence and knowledge build and
accelerate each other but humans are
limited by biology and evolution once we
evolved the right Hardware our software
outpaced evolution by orders of
magnitudes and within a heartbeat we
ruled this planet but our software
basically hasn't changed much since then
which is why we have obesity and destroy
the climate for short-term gains since
AGI is software on a computer once it's
smart enough to do AI research the rate
of AI progress should speed up a lot and
that results in better AI That's better
at AI research without much human
involvement it may even be possible that
AI could learn how to directly improve
itself in which case some experts fear
this feedback loop could be incredibly
fast maybe just months or years after
the first self-improving hii is switched
on maybe it would actually take decades
we simply don't know this is all
speculative but such an intelligence
explosion might lead to a true
superintelligent entity we don't know
what such a being would look like what
its motives or goals would be what would
go on in its inner world we could be as
laughably stupid to superintelligence as
squirrels are to us unable to even
comprehend its way of
thinking this hypothetical scenario
keeps many people up at night humanity
is the only example we have of an animal
becoming smarter than all others and we
have not been kind to what we perceive
as less intelligent beings AGI might be
the last invention of humanity it's
possible that it could become the most
intelligent and therefore most powerful
being on earth a God in a box that could
exercise its power to bring unimaginable
wealth and happiness to humans while
securing our future or it could subvert
civilization and bring about our end
with Humanity unable to come up with a
way to stop it we'll look at some of
these potential Futures in more videos
but for now let's wrap up the only thing
we know for sure is that today right now
many of the largest and richest
companies in the world are racing to
create ever more powerful AIS whatever
our future is we are running towards
it who knows how long we have until we
must confront our AI future luckily you
still have plenty of time to prepare for
it if you're learning on Brilliance that
is
brilliant will make you a better thinker
and Problem Solver in just minutes a day
with thousands of bite-sized Hands-On
lessons on just about anything you may
be curious about including AI their
latest course how llms work takes you
under the hood of real language models
it demystifies Technologies like chat
gbt with interactive lessons on
everything from how models build
vocabulary to how they choose their next
word you'll learn how to tune llms to
produce output with exactly your desired
tonality whether it's poetry or a cover
letter and you'll understand why
training is really everything by
comparing models trained on Taylor Swift
lyrics and the legal speech of big Tech
terms and conditions it's an immersive
AI Workshop allowing you to experience
and harness the mechanics of today's
most advanced tool we've also partnered
with brilliant to create a series of
lessons to take your scientific
knowledge to the next level these
lessons let you further explore the
topics in our most popular videos from
rapes and mum metabolism to climate
science and supern noi each lesson on
brilliant is interactive like a
one-on-one version of a cazar video and
you can get started Whenever Wherever
right from whatever device you'd like to
get handson with ktz kazak lessons and
explore everything brilliant has to
offer from Ai and programming to maths
science and Beyond start your free
30-day trial by signing up at
brilliant.org
nutshell there's even an extra perk for
courts gazar viewers anyone signing up
through our link will get get 20% off an
annual membership once their trial ends
[Music]