The Radically Optimistic Case for AGI: Ankiti Bose of Terra Invest

I am radically optimistic about AGI because I think it could help us solve problems that have defeated generations of brilliant people. The prospect of finding a cure faster is enough to take that possibility seriously. Add the ability to build in space, work deep under the sea and make advanced knowledge widely accessible, and the scale of the opportunity becomes hard to overstate.

That is the future I want us to work towards. From my perspective at Terra Invest, the most exciting question is how much more humanity could understand and accomplish with vastly greater intelligence available to it.

By artificial general intelligence, I mean systems capable of learning, reasoning and doing difficult work across a broad range of fields. The scientific tools we can point to today demonstrate narrower capabilities. My optimism comes from what more general, reliable systems could make possible as those capabilities develop.

The next cure is worth being impatient for

Disease is personal long before it becomes an economic statistic. For someone waiting for a treatment, the pace of scientific progress determines what they get to hope for.

I believe AI could help us find cures faster by improving how we understand biology, choose experiments and learn from their results. Consider a research team investigating a disease that has resisted treatment. A system that could connect findings across disciplines, propose useful hypotheses and help interpret new evidence would give that team more promising paths to explore.

There is already concrete work to build on. The 2024 AlphaFold 3 paper in Nature describes a model that predicts structures involving proteins, DNA, RNA and other molecules, including potential drug molecules. It gives researchers another way to investigate interactions central to biology. A structural prediction still needs experimental validation; it is an input to research, not evidence that a treatment works.

The larger possibility is a much faster cycle of proposing, testing and refining ideas. As AI becomes more capable across disciplines, it could help researchers understand which experiment is worth running next and why a previous one failed.

Clinical trials, manufacturing and getting treatments to patients will still take real work. Improving discovery would make that work more valuable by giving it better candidates. If we can bring even some effective treatments forward, the human benefit could be enormous.

Build where humans cannot easily go

Our ambition for AI should extend into the physical world, including places where building is extraordinarily difficult today.

In space, more capable AI could help engineers design equipment, plan assembly and operate robots far from immediate human support. Under the sea, it could help us inspect and repair cables, develop research infrastructure and maintain offshore energy equipment in difficult conditions. These are opportunities to expand what we can safely build and learn.

An early example comes from NASA’s work on AI-assisted mission hardware. Its engineers have used AI software to generate specialised structural components, with people defining requirements and checking the results. That is a useful glimpse of how computational design can support demanding physical engineering.

I can imagine more general systems helping across the whole project: reasoning about materials, learning from simulations, coordinating construction and responding to unexpected conditions. Robots would still need dependable hardware. Designs would still face pressure, corrosion, radiation and all the other ways the physical world checks our confidence.

Those constraints make the engineering interesting. More intelligence could help us meet them. This is part of what I admire about Elon Musk’s ambition: the willingness to pursue difficult physical goals over many years. The same appetite for building should shape what we ask of AGI.

Discovery can make the next discovery easier

The possibility that most excites me is that progress could compound across fields.

A better material could improve a scientific instrument. A better instrument could reveal something about biology that we could not previously observe. That insight could lead to a treatment, or to a better method for investigating another disease. Systems that work across disciplines could help researchers recognise and use these connections much sooner.

Some of the knowledge that emerges may feel almost magical to us today. I mean explanations we cannot yet formulate and solutions we do not yet know how to search for. Scientific progress has repeatedly enlarged the questions people can ask. AGI could help that happen much faster.

Access matters just as much as discovery. A student with an excellent scientific tutor, a doctor able to investigate a difficult question, or a small engineering team able to test an ambitious design would each gain room to attempt more. The benefits of powerful intelligence should reach people whose ability has always exceeded their resources.

That prospect is a major part of my optimism. More people would have the means to contribute to the next breakthrough.

A future worth taking responsibility for

My bullish view depends on taking the management of this technology seriously. Systems doing consequential work need rigorous evaluation, clear limits on their authority and people accountable for how they are used. Biological misuse and loss of control deserve serious technical attention. We also need to invest in the skills and opportunities people will need as work changes.

I believe those responsibilities are worth taking on because the upside could far outweigh the downside if we manage the transition well. The world we have today contains diseases we cannot treat and problems we do not yet know how to solve. That gives us an urgent reason to pursue greater capability with care and ambition.

I want us to become much better at keeping people healthy, exploring our planet and building beyond it. AGI could be an extraordinary ally in that effort. I am willing to put my optimism in writing.

I hope this ages well. Ideally, so do I.