Safety, Ethics & Governance · intermediate · concept 183 of 187
Superintelligence (ASI)
Superintelligence is Bostrom's term for an intellect that outperforms the best human minds in essentially every domain, including scientific creativity and social skill. He distinguishes three forms: speed (human-level thinking run much faster), collective (many minds coordinated into one system), and quality (better reasoning in kind). Practitioners often treat ASI as AGI plus more compute, arriving on a datable schedule. It is a philosophical construct, not a benchmark: the definition, whether recursive self-improvement follows AGI, and every proposed timeline remain contested.
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Where you meet it in the real world
No deployed systems: the term shapes frontier-lab safety programs such as superalignment and weak-to-strong supervision, frontier-model governance debate, and existential-risk research funding.
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Computerphile · YouTube
Computerphile · YouTube
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