John Carmack’s Bold Quest: Building AGI from Game Engines to Rocket Science

John Carmack, the legendary game developer, rocket engineer and VR pioneer, has turned his focus to building artificial general intelligence (AGI) through his startup Keen Technologies, which recently raised $20 million.

He describes AGI as a form of AI that can understand, learn and perform any intellectual task a human can, and sees it as the “fourth major stage” of his career after id Software, Armadillo Aerospace and Oculus VR.

Why is he pursuing AGI and how?

Carmack says he spends long hours thinking about technical concepts, recording theories and testing them, because the path to AGI is still unknown.

What sparked his interest?

He notes that the past decade of deep learning has dramatically changed what machines can do, and that previous cycles of hype and disappointment have given way to real progress.

His view on the AI landscape

He warns that large investments in narrow machine‑learning projects may distract from the long‑term goal of AGI, and that many current virtual assistants are fragile and not on the path to a truly general system.

Key challenges and predictions

Carmack estimates a 20‑30 % chance of achieving noticeable AGI within the next 50 years, and believes the required code base could be only a few hundred thousand lines, far less than today’s massive applications.

Why work independently?

He feels the major players are engaged in “groupthink” and prefers to explore random experiments on his own, leveraging his systems‑engineering background.

Potential impact

He believes AGI will reshape the economy and human capability, creating value far beyond current AI products.