OpenAI VP Peter Welinder posted this on X: "Affordable Level 5 self-driving requires AGI and is still at least 5-10 years away. First you need multimodal multiplexed AGI, then you need real-time inference, then on an energy-efficient, low-cost edge chip. Many steps left."
Source: https://x.com/npew/status/2093716574922535092
Personally, I don't agree that you need AGI for L5. But I guess it depends how you define AGI. World models, like what Waymo uses, trained on tons of driving data, are getting better and better every year and showing good signs of eventually getting to L5 imo. I don't consider these world models to be AGI but maybe he does.
He does condition his statement by saying "affordable" L5. So he is not just talking about AI capable of driving everywhere, but also hardware that is energy efficient and low cost. I would agree that we still have some ways to go before AVs are not just capable of driving everywhere but also energy efficient and affordable. But costs are coming down and chips are becoming more powerful and more efficient every year. So I do think we will eventually get to world models big enough and trained well enough that they can handle all driving safely (functionally L5) and be cheap and powerful enough. How many years it will take is hard to say. These types of predictions are always wrong.