This Friday in Tokyo, Masayoshi Son, CEO of the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, dropped a bombshell that left the audience stunned: superintelligent artificial intelligence (ASI) will soon be 10,000 times more intelligent than any human being.
To drive the point home, he delivered a brutal metaphor: “Compared to AI, we will be like goldfish in a bowl”, creatures with a three-second memory facing an almost infinite intellect.
AI Winning the Nobel Prize in Literature
According to the billionaire, AI’s creative abilities will soon surpass those of the greatest writers in history.
“It will write novels far better than today’s best and will win the Nobel Prize in Literature without breaking a sweat,” he declared, triggering a mix of nervous laughter and chills in the room.
SoftBank: The Giant That Bet $30 Billion on OpenAI
These statements don’t come out of thin air. SoftBank is one of the most aggressive investors in artificial intelligence, having poured over $30 billion into the sector, including massive stakes in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT and GPT-5.
For Masayoshi Son, AI isn’t just another industry; it’s the one technology capable of completely reshaping humanity’s future.
The Singularity “In the Next Few Years”
While many experts place the arrival of superintelligence in 2030, 2050, or never, Masayoshi Son believes it’s coming very soon.
He describes a self-improving intelligence that will enhance itself exponentially, the exact moment of the technological “Singularity” he has been predicting for more than two decades.
What Will Happen to Us “Goldfish” Humans?
This vision raises an unavoidable question: what becomes of humanity?
Masayoshi Son swings between technological optimism and cheerful fatalism. He envisions a world of unprecedented abundance where intellectual tasks are handed over to AI, freeing humans… provided we accept our new, lower place in the cognitive pecking order.
Marketing Stunt or Genuine Prophecy?
Masayoshi Son has already lost nearly $100 billion through his Vision Fund on failed bets (WeWork and others). Yet he continues to go all-in on AI.
Is this marketing provocation designed to attract talent and capital, or the clear-eyed vision of a man who has been right too early in the past?
One thing is certain: when the investor who put $30 billion into OpenAI compares you to a goldfish, it might be time to start swimming faster.
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