Super intelligence: when machines start to think

While ChatGPT has made inroads into our everyday lives - my neighbour affectionately calls it "Chatti" and uses it to plan her garden - research is already working on the next stage: artificial intelligence that not only answers, but also thinks, plans and makes decisions independently: Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Development is gathering pace - both in terms of speed and scope. Companies such as Meta and xAI are investing billions, political frameworks such as the EU AI Act are emerging - and what is basic research today could shape everyday working life tomorrow.

That's why now is the time to get to grips with it. Not out of sensationalism - but out of responsibility. Because if you understand what it's all about today, you'll be able to think and make decisions tomorrow. Specialist journalist Annett Kieschnick once again analyses some developments for us here - in a well-founded, understandable way and with the necessary respect for a technology that could fundamentally change the way we think, work and make decisions.

Enjoy reading and discovering!

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Two days of action are taking place on 20 and 25 September: The Day of Craftsmanship celebrates skills, while the Day of Dental Health emphasises benefits. A good PR opportunity for dental laboratories to combine both worlds: modern craftsmanship for healthy teeth. The trade's advertising portal provides support with material and ideas.

New master craftsman ordinance: digital becomes mandatory

The modernised Master Dental Technician Ordinance will come into force on 1 August 2025. Digital production processes will become part of training and examinations. Quality management, data protection and environmental protection will also become more important. Interesting: The ban on delegation for intraoral scans remains in place.

EU Data Act: New rules for data from September

The EU Data Act comes into force on 12 September. The aim: data accessibility and interoperability. The regulation harmonises the access and use of data - relevant for smart medical devices, practice IT systems and networked dentistry. More information from the DIHK.

Deep Dive | Background and perspectives

Super intelligence: What comes after ChatGPT?

Everyone knows ChatGPT - it answers questions, writes texts and helps with everyday tasks. But behind this familiar façade, something bigger is developing. The keyword is AGI - Artificial General Intelligence.

Three stages of AI development

Artificial intelligence is developing along a scale - from specialised tools to human-like systems and hypothetical superintelligence.

Narrow AI - specialised artificial intelligence (today): Narrow AI as we know it today is specialised: a chatbot, CAD software or an intraoral scanner with AI functions. Such systems are fast and efficient. They recognise patterns, process probabilities and follow clear rules. Get to know modern intraoral scanners and the possibilities of AI in a workshop.
AGI - Artificial General Intelligence (in development): AGI would be a qualitative leap: a system that learns flexibly, transfers tasks, draws its own conclusions; comparable to a digital colleague. This stage has not yet been reached, but leading AI laboratories are working intensively on it. Some are talking about a breakthrough by 2030, while more conservative voices are predicting AGI after 2035.
ASI - Artificial Superintelligence (hypothetical): ASI, or Artificial Superintelligence, would be far beyond that: machines that are superior to humans in all cognitive abilities, such as thinking, understanding, planning, explaining, researching and problem-solving. Today, this is hypothetical - but not unthinkable. This super-intelligence could:

Revolutionise science and medicine,
make human labour superfluous
or get out of control (keyword: alignment problem).

Status:

Purely theoretical - no ASI system exists
No reliable timeframe - many see it as decades away or uncertain

The leap from Narrow AI to AGI is huge - and that to ASI possibly the biggest technological step in human history.

The race for AGI: players & current affairs

Today's AI systems are masters at recognising patterns. They interpolate - fill in gaps, recognise probabilities, generate plausible answers. But: they understand neither cause nor goal. The difference to AGI is not in the speed, but in the way of thinking. AGI should be able to

recognise causality ("Why is this happening?"),
plan in several stages ("If A doesn't work, then B will"),
correct itself ("That wasn't plausible - I'll try something else").

The new era of AI is not a purely technological process, but also a geopolitical and economic power play; a field of tension between technology and power. With xAI, Elon Musk is one of the central figures in the global race for artificial general intelligence (AGI). Current status (August 2025): Grok 4, the latest model of xAI, is one of the most powerful systems on the market. Musk is integrating Grok directly into Tesla (Autopilot, Robotaxi) and X (formerly Twitter) - in other words, into real, networked systems. His goal: an AGI by 2026 that is reliable, controllable and user-centred. A dual role: Musk warns against superintelligence without value attachment, while at the same time working to realise it under his control. This ambivalence makes him a key figure in the AGI debate.

Other players: OpenAI (GPT-4o), Anthropic (Claude 3, focus on safety & alignment), Google DeepMind (Gemini, leader in multimodality), Meta (LLaMA models, open source focus).

What all this has to do with dental technology

Dental technology is customised, material-based, in love with detail - and full of implicit knowledge. This is precisely where AGI could provide support in the future, e.g. B.:

analysing scan data,
in the selection of suitable materials,
in the simulation of biomechanical stress

- and not according to a recipe, but situation-sensitive and adaptive.

What counts: Attitude, not prediction

Whether AGI comes tomorrow or in ten years' time: The direction is clear. Systems are getting smarter - but they remain tools. The people who understand, guide and categorise them remain the decisive factor. For dental technology, this means thinking ahead, staying tuned - and recognising your own craft as a strength. The future does not belong to those who automate everything, but to those who understand, judge and use intelligently. What's coming and what we can do with it today: More on this in LabMag 6.

That's why now is the time to get to grips with it. Not out of sensationalism - but out of responsibility. Because if you understand what it's all about today, you'll be able to think and make decisions tomorrow. Specialist journalist Annett Kieschnick analyses some of the developments for us - in a well-founded, understandable way and with the necessary respect for a technology that could fundamentally change the way we think, work and make decisions.