What is superintelligence?
Superintelligence is intelligence that greatly exceeds the best human minds in virtually every field, including science, strategy and social skill. It is hypothetical: no such system exists. The term was popularised by philosopher Nick Bostrom, and artificial superintelligence (ASI) is the machine version.
The full answer
Superintelligence is intelligence far beyond the best human minds in practically every field of interest, including scientific creativity, strategic planning and social skill. When it is built from machines it is called artificial superintelligence, or ASI.
The idea was developed by philosopher Nick Bostrom in his 2014 book Superintelligence, which argued that a system able to improve its own design could move from human level to far beyond it very quickly, an "intelligence explosion". Whether that is possible is a live debate.
No superintelligent system exists. Today's AI is narrow, even when it beats humans at specific tasks. The question researchers argue about is not whether superintelligence is a word, but whether, when and how it could be built, and whether it could be kept aligned with human goals.
That last point is the heart of the AI safety field. If a system were much smarter than us, ensuring it does what we actually want would be hard, which is why books like Bostrom's and Stuart Russell's Human Compatible are on most reading lists.
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