Answers.Body: <p>In the last years, there have been big investments in AI technologies. For an overview, maybe take a look at this article <a href="http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/ar/617511573040599056/pdf/Artificial-Intelligence-Investment-Trends-and-Selected-Industry-Uses.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Artificial Intelligence: Investment Trends and Selected Industry Uses</a> (2019).</p>
  <p>A few companies that have the <strong>long-term</strong> goal of creating an AGI, although, currently, they mainly do research on specific problems (e.g. video games) or AI techniques (e.g. reinforcement learning), have received many funds. I will only list a few (maybe the most well-known ones) of these companies below, but there are probably many other companies that have this long-term goal and have been funded by other companies or people.</p>
  <h3>DeepMind</h3>
  <p>In <a href="https://deepmind.com/about" rel="nofollow noreferrer">their site</a>, they write</p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>Like the Hubble telescope that helps us see deeper into space, we aim to build advanced AI - sometimes known as <strong>Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)</strong> - to expand our knowledge and find new answers. By solving this, we believe we could help people solve thousands of problems.</p>
  </blockquote>
  <p>DeepMind was acquired by Google in 2015 for $500 million, given its success in playing games at a superhuman performance, which is a promising step towards the development of more AI techniques and maybe AGI.</p>
  <p>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepMind" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Wikipedia article on DeepMind</a> contains some information about people or companies that have invested in DeepMind, which includes companies Horizons Ventures and Founders Fund, and people  Scott Banister, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Jaan Tallinn, although I cannot give you the exact numbers in terms of capital. In any case, serious investments have been done in DeepMind, which is definitely one of the promising companies that could develop good insights into the development of AGI systems.</p>
  <h3>OpenAI</h3>
  <p>Another company that has a similar goal and is doing research on similar topics (such as reinforcement learning or natural language processing) is OpenAI, which also has the long-term goal of creating AGI systems, as they write in <a href="https://openai.com/about/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">their website</a></p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that <strong>artificial general intelligence (AGI)</strong> — by which we mean highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work — benefits all of humanity. We will attempt to directly build safe and beneficial AGI, but will also consider our mission fulfilled if our work aids others to achieve this outcome.</p>
  </blockquote>
  <p><a href="https://openai.com/about/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Their investors include Microsoft, Reid Hoffman's charitable foundation, and Khosla Ventures</a>.</p>
  <h3>Vicarious</h3>
  <p>They write in <a href="https://www.vicarious.com/company/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">their site</a></p>
  <blockquote>
  <p><strong>Artificial general intelligence</strong> is the finish line on our journey toward progressively more capable robots. Our approach leverages deep expertise in neuroscience and is shaped by a decade of research.</p>
  </blockquote>
  <p><a href="https://www.vicarious.com/company/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">They are apparently backed by more than 150 million dollars</a> from people like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and companies like Samsung.</p>
  
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Answers.CreationDate: 2020-09-16T13:56:54.073Z
Answers.Text: Nice answer, it contains interesting examples. Thank you for your contribution.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Winston
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Answers.Text: This blog post [What’s So Disturbing about Microsoft’s OpenAI Investment?](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whats-so-disturbing-microsofts-openai-investment-ben-goertzel/) (2019) by Ben Goertzel may also be interesting and useful.
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Answers.Body: <p>Forget about OpenAI and DeepMind etc. in that order. They are just doing stupid deep learning and backward propagation which is technology from the 50s. There are virtually no pure AGI companies because it's still early days.</p>
  <p>Total investment per year of serious AGI is far below 100 Million a year. <br />
  Go read some AGI papers from the AGI conference and adjacent conferences, some entities like to point out publically their funding sources. Sometimes even with the exact amount of funding.</p>
  <p>Bottom line: Funding is still ridiculous low compared to what say Google makes in 2 months alone with stupid ads.</p>
  <p>The field is still massivly underfunded <br /> <a href="https://medium.com/@petervoss/why-arent-more-people-working-on-agi-7c8367bf2615" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://medium.com/@petervoss/why-arent-more-people-working-on-agi-7c8367bf2615</a></p>
  
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Body: <p>How much is currently invested in artificial general intelligence research and development <em>worldwide</em>?</p>
  <p>Feel free to add company or VC names, but this is not the point. The point is to get an idea of the economics around artificial general intelligence.</p>
  
Tags: <reference-request><agi><research><economics>
Title: How much is currently invested in artificial general intelligence research and development?
UserDisplayName: Winston
ThreadText: # How much is currently invested in artificial general intelligence research and development?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2020-09-16)
  
  How much is currently invested in artificial general intelligence research and development *worldwide*?
  
  Feel free to add company or VC names, but this is not the point. The point is to get an idea of the economics around artificial general intelligence.
  
  **Tags:** reference-request, agi, research, economics
  
  ---
  
  ## 2 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2020-09-16. Score: 5
  
  In the last years, there have been big investments in AI technologies. For an overview, maybe take a look at this article [Artificial Intelligence: Investment Trends and Selected Industry Uses](http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/ar/617511573040599056/pdf/Artificial-Intelligence-Investment-Trends-and-Selected-Industry-Uses.pdf) (2019).
  
  A few companies that have the **long-term** goal of creating an AGI, although, currently, they mainly do research on specific problems (e.g. video games) or AI techniques (e.g. reinforcement learning), have received many funds. I will only list a few (maybe the most well-known ones) of these companies below, but there are probably many other companies that have this long-term goal and have been funded by other companies or people.
  
  ### DeepMind
  
  In [their site](https://deepmind.com/about), they write
  
  > Like the Hubble telescope that helps us see deeper into space, we aim to build advanced AI - sometimes known as **Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)** - to expand our knowledge and find new answers. By solving this, we believe we could help people solve thousands of problems.
  
  DeepMind was acquired by Google in 2015 for $500 million, given its success in playing games at a superhuman performance, which is a promising step towards the development of more AI techniques and maybe AGI.
  
  The [Wikipedia article on DeepMind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepMind) contains some information about people or companies that have invested in DeepMind, which includes companies Horizons Ventures and Founders Fund, and people Scott Banister, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Jaan Tallinn, although I cannot give you the exact numbers in terms of capital. In any case, serious investments have been done in DeepMind, which is definitely one of the promising companies that could develop good insights into the development of AGI systems.
  
  ### OpenAI
  
  Another company that has a similar goal and is doing research on similar topics (such as reinforcement learning or natural language processing) is OpenAI, which also has the long-term goal of creating AGI systems, as they write in [their website](https://openai.com/about/)
  
  > OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that **artificial general intelligence (AGI)** — by which we mean highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work — benefits all of humanity. We will attempt to directly build safe and beneficial AGI, but will also consider our mission fulfilled if our work aids others to achieve this outcome.
  
  [Their investors include Microsoft, Reid Hoffman's charitable foundation, and Khosla Ventures](https://openai.com/about/).
  
  ### Vicarious
  
  They write in [their site](https://www.vicarious.com/company/)
  
  > **Artificial general intelligence** is the finish line on our journey toward progressively more capable robots. Our approach leverages deep expertise in neuroscience and is shaped by a decade of research.
  
  [They are apparently backed by more than 150 million dollars](https://www.vicarious.com/company/) from people like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and companies like Samsung.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: Nice answer, it contains interesting examples. Thank you for your contribution.  
  > **username_1**: This blog post [What’s So Disturbing about Microsoft’s OpenAI Investment?](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whats-so-disturbing-microsofts-openai-investment-ben-goertzel/) (2019) by Ben Goertzel may also be interesting and useful.  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_2 on 2022-03-21. Score: 0
  
  Forget about OpenAI and DeepMind etc. in that order. They are just doing stupid deep learning and backward propagation which is technology from the 50s. There are virtually no pure AGI companies because it's still early days.
  
  Total investment per year of serious AGI is far below 100 Million a year.   
  Go read some AGI papers from the AGI conference and adjacent conferences, some entities like to point out publically their funding sources. Sometimes even with the exact amount of funding.
  
  Bottom line: Funding is still ridiculous low compared to what say Google makes in 2 months alone with stupid ads.
  
  The field is still massivly underfunded   
   <https://medium.com/@petervoss/why-arent-more-people-working-on-agi-7c8367bf2615>
  
  
  ---
  
  