SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son has outlined an ambitious timeline for the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), envisioning the advent of AI butlers in the near future. Speaking at an annual forum for corporate clients, Son described a future where AI can monitor family health, contact doctors when necessary, handle shopping and appointments, evaluate investment strategies, and even tutor children. He believes that general AI could become a reality within the next two to three years, aligning with long-term goals of companies like OpenAI, Meta, and Google.
Son, who leads Japan's largest tech investment firm, has already invested in hundreds of startups and companies developing new technologies and services with AI. Despite skepticism, he remains optimistic about AI's potential and warns that those who don't embrace the AI revolution may fall behind. He foresees AI personal assistants that understand emotions and provide a sense of happiness, describing future super AI as capable of making people happier.
Son's dedication to investing heavily in AI is evident as SoftBank, with significant cash reserves, invested $500 million in OpenAI's latest $6.6 billion funding round. This round valued OpenAI, an AI leader, at $157 billion. While Son did not mention this investment in his speech, he praised OpenAI’s latest ChatGPT model for its human-like reasoning capabilities.
During his presentation, Son tested the new ChatGPT model with challenging questions, such as strategies to grow his savings account to 100 million yen and extending electric vehicle battery life, receiving satisfactory answers within 45 seconds. He highlighted that while the human brain consists of roughly 100 trillion synapses, generative AI is creating new synapses at an astonishing pace.
For AI with reasoning abilities to perform complex tasks, like pricing services or controlling bath water temperature, it needs to communicate and negotiate with others. Such advancements will drive increased connectivity demand and require more chips using SoftBank's Arm technology.
