AI in Action: An Interactive Learning Journey

Superagency: The transformative potential of AI

Welcome to AI in Action. In this edition, the first in a series of four learning modules, we explore key concepts from our Superagency in the workplace report, with video clips, interactive activities, podcast excerpts, and ideas for further reflection. Regardless of your background with AI, there is much to learn and inspire in the following content—we encourage you to immerse yourself in these activities and proceed at your own pace.

Tune in below for a warm welcome from AI thought leaders—and our hosts—Reid Hoffman and Lareina Yee. We hope their excitement and rich conversation prompt reflection on your own role in AI’s future.

Superagency in the business context

Lareina introduces a key concept discussed in this module: superagency.

What is superagency, really?

Reid explains superagency through an extended metaphor: the cognitive industrial revolution.

How is AI different from past innovations?

Reid discusses how AI builds on past innovations, such as the internet, to create something even more powerful.

What new technology will emerge over the next 15 years?

Reid elaborates on exciting AI capabilities he predicts will emerge in coming years.
A profile of a 3d head made of concrete that is sliced in half creating two separate parts. Pink neon binary numbers travel from one half of the a head to the other by a stone bridge that connects the two parts.

There’s a critical difference between AI and AGI [artificial general intelligence]. Although the latest gen AI technologies, including ChatGPT, DALL-E, and others, have been hogging headlines, they are essentially prediction machines—albeit very good ones. In other words, they can predict, with a high degree of accuracy, the answer to a specific prompt because they’ve been trained on huge amounts of data.

This is impressive, but it’s not at a human level of performance in terms of creativity, logical reasoning, sensory perception, and other capabilities. By contrast, AGI tools could feature cognitive and emotional abilities—like empathy—indistinguishable from those of a human.

What is artificial general intelligence AGI?

Further reading

A profile of a 3d head made of concrete that is sliced in half creating two separate parts. Pink neon binary numbers travel from one half of the a head to the other by a stone bridge that connects the two parts.
What is artificial general intelligence (AGI)?
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Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is a theoretical AI system with capabilities that rival those of a human. Many researchers believe we are still decades, if not centuries, away from achieving AGI.
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What’s the future of generative AI? An early view in 15 charts
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Generative AI has hit the ground running—so fast that it can feel hard to keep up. Here’s a quick take pulled from our top articles and reports on the subject.

What is agentic AI?

Reid and Lareina dive deeper into the concept of agentic AI and how technology “taking action” more broadly affects humans.

Brief recap of what we learned

AI in Action: An interactive learning journey

Explore the full learning series
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Report

Superagency in the workplace: Empowering people to unlock AI’s full potential

Almost all companies invest in AI, but just 1 percent believe they are at maturity. Our research finds the biggest barrier to scaling is not employees—who are ready—but leaders, who are not steering fast enough.

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