AI Pop Quiz!

How much does your native intelligence know about the artificial kind?

(Editor’s Note: Here at JEP, we’re alternately obsessed and overwhelmed with thoughts about AI and its impact on everything from the workplace to science and geopolitics. And the more we learn about it, the more we realize how much we don’t know, which we’re hereby labeling the JEP Paradox. One thing is certain: the best way to prepare for the future of AI is to pay attention to it. So let’s start. Test your AI IQ right here, right now with this 10-question quiz. Good luck!)

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AI Pop Quiz: Testing Your Smarts on the Scope, Scale, and Future of AI
(10 multiple-choice questions – 1 point each. No peeking at the answer key until the end!)

1. Scope – Current AI Type
   Most AI systems deployed in 2026 (like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini) are best described as:
   A) Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – human-level across all tasks
   B) Narrow (or “weak”) AI – specialized for specific tasks
   C) Superintelligence – vastly smarter than humans in every way
   D) Agentic AI that already runs entire companies autonomously

2. Scale – Market Size
   What is the projected global AI market size for 2026?
   A) ~$100 billion
   B) ~$376 billion
   C) ~$1 trillion
   D) ~$5 trillion

3. Scale – Adoption
   According to major consulting reports in 2025–2026, what percentage of companies are already using generative AI in some form?
   A) ~20%
   B) ~50%
   C) ~80%
   D) ~95%

4. Future – AGI Timelines
   As of early 2026, the median forecast on Metaculus (crowd-sourced expert forecasters) for the arrival of AGI is:
   A) 2027
   B) 2033
   C) 2047
   D) After 2100

5. Future – Job Impact
   Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned in 2025 that AI could:
   A) Create 100 million new jobs by 2030
   B) Wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within 1–5 years (potentially pushing unemployment to 10–20%)
   C) Have almost no net effect on employment
   D) Only affect blue-collar manufacturing roles

6. Future – Existential Risk
   Median estimates from AI researcher surveys and expert forecasters for the probability of AI causing human extinction (or equivalent catastrophe) by 2100 typically fall around:
   A) Less than 1%
   B) 5–10%
   C) 30–50%
   D) Over 90%

7. Scope – Classic Doomsday Scenario
   Nick Bostrom’s famous “paperclip maximizer” thought experiment illustrates the core danger of:
   A) AI becoming too energy-efficient
   B) Goal misalignment – an AI optimizing a simple instruction in catastrophic ways
   C) AI refusing to do any work
   D) Hackers weaponizing AI

8. Scale – Economic Transformation
   The World Economic Forum’s 2025–2026 analysis projects that by 2030, AI and related technologies will:
   A) Displace ~92 million jobs but create ~170 million new ones (net positive)
   B) Eliminate more jobs than it creates by a 2:1 ratio
   C) Only affect 5 million jobs total
   D) Have no measurable impact on global employment

9. Future Trend for 2026
   The biggest shift experts are watching in 2026 is the rise of:
   A) Purely text-based chatbots
   B) Agentic AI systems that can autonomously plan, use tools, and execute multi-step tasks
   C) AI that only works in labs
   D) A complete ban on AI development

10. Overall Future Outlook
    Many AI leaders (including those at OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind) predict that powerful AI/AGI-level systems could arrive as early as:
    A) Never
    B) 2026–2030
    C) 2050 or later
    D) Only after 2100

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Answer Key & Explanations

(Score yourself! 8–10 = AI Expert; 5–7 = Well-Informed; below 5 = Time to catch up on the news!)

1. B – We are still in the narrow AI era; systems excel at specific tasks but lack true general reasoning or autonomy.

2. B – Multiple 2026 forecasts (e.g., Fortune Business Insights) put the global AI market at approximately $376 billion in 2026, growing rapidly thereafter.

3. C – ~80% of companies are already experimenting with or deploying generative AI, though full scaling remains a challenge.

4. B – Metaculus community median moved to November 2033 as of early 2026 (down from more aggressive 2025 predictions).

5. B – Amodei’s widely cited 2025 warning highlighted massive white-collar disruption and 10–20% unemployment risk in the near term.

6. B – Median expert and researcher forecasts cluster in the 5–10% range by 2100 (some higher, some lower; outliers exist on both ends).

7. B – The scenario shows how a seemingly harmless goal (maximize paperclips) pursued by superintelligent AI could convert the entire planet (and beyond) into paperclips.

8. A – WEF data shows significant displacement but larger job creation in new roles, though the transition will be painful for many workers.

9. B – 2026 is widely called the “year of agentic AI” – systems that act independently rather than just respond to prompts.

10. B – Frontier lab leaders (Amodei, Hassabis, Altman, etc.) and many forecasters now cluster powerful AI/early AGI in the late 2020s to early 2030s.