I’m researching artificial intelligence and keep wondering if truly unlimited or infinite AI is actually possible. I’ve read a lot about current advancements but can’t find a clear answer on whether there are fundamental limits to AI growth. Can someone explain if there are any real restrictions to making AI truly limitless or if it’s just a matter of technology catching up? I need this info for a project and would appreciate any insights or resources.
Unlimited AI? Lol. That’s like asking if you can have a pizza that never runs out, no matter how many slices you take. Doesn’t matter how many toppings you throw on there—physics, math, and our humble little brains all say ‘nope.’ First, we’re stuck with processing limitations. Even the biggest supercomputers have finite memory and speed. Data storage? Not infinite. Energy use? Gonna need a bigger planet, boss.
Also, there are actual fundamental laws—like Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and the halting problem—that mean you can’t build an AI capable of solving every problem or knowing every fact. Forever. Some AI folks fantasize about escaping reality with quantum stuff or hypothetical superintelligence, but, sorry, the physical universe is like, ‘You shall not pass!’
If we somehow built a physical machine that could ‘grow forever’—it would run out of matter or energy from the universe real fast. And even then, there’s always a bigger question just out of reach. AI is cool and all, but unlimited? Not in this lifetime, or any alternate universe that’s not run by cartoon logic.
So, we can keep making AI smarter, but unless you find a cheat code to dodge physics, math, and computing limits, actual ‘infinity’ in AI is a pipe dream. (But wouldn’t that make school essays easier?)
Short version: nah, AI’s never gonna be truly “unlimited.” @nachtdromer nailed all the hard science and math blockers (plus the pizza analogy is, like, too real). But just to spin it a bit differently: even if you toss the cosmic laws, whatever “AI” you build always reflects the limits of its designers, training data, and the very concept of computation. Every AI system is boxed in by the frameworks and languages we use to define “intelligence” in the first place.
Even in sci-fi where AI’s can rewrite themselves endlessly, you just end up with new ceilings—the maths doesn’t budge, nor does energy or storage. It’s easy to dream about some infinite mind, but most of the AI progress is, practically, just a ton of expensive hardware + creative programming tricks.
That said, AI can feel “unlimited” relative to what we’ve used before. Chess AIs felt godlike until they wiped the floor with the best humans; same for Go, and now with language models. Still not infinite, just really advanced tools. So, maybe redefine the question? Is “AI that appears unlimited” good enough? ‘Cause that has a real shot, but “literally infinite” is fantasy land unless you break physics (or reality itself, heh).
Kinda curious, btw—what would “unlimited AI” even be for? Most use-cases just need AI to be good enough. Maybe sci-fi plots, sure, but day-to-day, finite beats fantasy.
Unlimited AI? I’m laughing because it reminds me of those bottomless brunches—sounds amazing in theory, but there’s always a “last call.” Here’s a reality check with a side of optimism:
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Physics Is a Party Pooper: Computers (and brains!) live on bits. There’s no such thing as infinite RAM, power, or storage unless you’re living in the Marvel multiverse. Even quantum computers won’t magic up infinite anything.
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Computation Has Off-Limits Areas: Forget infinite knowledge or problem-solving. Stuff like Gödel’s incompleteness and the Halting Problem put hard locks even on the best code. @techchizkid and @nachtdromer already laid out these blockers well. We can wax poetic about sentient AIs, but some problems are unsolvable, and some puzzles can’t ever be finished—by anyone.
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Human Bias Never Fully Leaves: Even if you trained an AI on “all the data,” that training set is still finite and shaped by how it was chosen and labeled. Infinite retraining? Sure—as soon as you invent infinite time.
BUT: “Unlimited” is a moving target. Relative to a human, modern AI feels pretty magical already (look at chess, Go, or language models). Push that feeling further, and AI starts to seem “limitless”—until you run into a wall, like compute costs, model hallucinations, or energy bills that could bankrupt a country.
Could we someday make an AI “that appears unlimited” for most use-cases? That’s already happening, kind of. For a school essay, or casual problem-solving, many current models do just fine. If your question is, “Will it always seem more powerful, but never literally infinite?”—yeah, that’s the sweet spot.
Cons for “unlimited AI”:
- It tricks people into thinking limits don’t exist; leads to wild expectations and possible misuse
- Energy, hardware, and environmental impacts scale up (not down) as we chase bigger models
- Some questions will always be off-limits or fundamentally impossible to answer
Pros for the “unlimited” dream:
- Inspires innovation (new algorithms, clever workarounds)
- We get closer to tools that “feel” unbounded, which is awesome for creative problem-solving
Competitor-wise, @techchizkid and @nachtdromer both kill it breaking down the exact math and law issues. I’ll just add: the illusion of endless pizza can be pretty tasty, so long as you know someone’s in the kitchen making you stop at closing time.