# AI can use known knowledge, but novel discovery remains uncertain

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/ai-can-use-known-knowledge-but-novel-discovery-remains/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Eric Schmidt](https://realalpha.app/people/eric-schmidt/) · Eric Schmidt is a former CEO of Google and technology executive. · Scaled Google as CEO through 2011, now runs rocket maker Relativity Space and co-founded Schmidt Sciences.
- Host: [Nicolai Tangen](https://realalpha.app/people/nicolai-tangen/) · CEO, Norges Bank Investment Management
- Show: In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen
- Episode: [Eric Schmidt: Are We Ready for Superintelligence? | Podcast | In Good Company](https://realalpha.app/v/U5YtR3OG5Uo/), Oct 21, 2026
- Moment: 8:40 to 11:21 of the episode (3 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/ai-can-use-known-knowledge-but-novel-discovery-remains/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/U5YtR3OG5Uo/?t=520

## Quote

> “we don't know, it's somewhere between, **my estimate is five to 10 years**.”
> — [Eric Schmidt](https://realalpha.app/people/eric-schmidt/) at [11:14](https://realalpha.app/v/U5YtR3OG5Uo/?t=674) · In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen

## Takeaways

1. Knowing existing mathematics may not be enough to discover new theories.
2. Cross-domain pattern recognition could help AI make discoveries.
3. Schmidt estimates discovery may be five to 10 years away.

## About this segment

Eric Schmidt says current systems can work across known facts but still struggle to make genuinely new discoveries. He estimates that capability may be five to 10 years away.

From “Eric Schmidt: Are We Ready for Superintelligence? | Podcast | In Good Company”, Oct 21, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/U5YtR3OG5Uo/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[8:42](https://realalpha.app/v/U5YtR3OG5Uo/?t=522) Absolutely. Given what you said, how close are we now to AGI, the artificial general intelligence? The way I would like to describe it is I think that there is a current boundary, a current event horizon. And the current horizon goes something like this. I can have a computer that works with you and me because you and I are good friends, helps us work through everything. It does their physics. They're called tools. It figures stuff out. It can think for hours. It can write all code. I was a professional programmer. My job is dead. I can just ask it. It can write all the code. I don't have to remember how to do all that anymore. All of that stuff is over. There appears to be a limit for things which are not already discovered. And it goes like this. You and I, with our AI, we'll know everything. We'll know every fact, every book, every math formula,

[9:37](https://realalpha.app/v/U5YtR3OG5Uo/?t=577) and so forth. It appears that real discovery is still a while away. And the example that's used in the in the industry is build a model that has all the math known in 1902 can you discover general relativity in other words you know nothing past 1902 the current evidence is that you can't right there are a couple of proposed techniques for this there's something called recursive self-improvement which is the technical term for learning and learning and learning and learning and the command would be learn everything start anywhere that's the command to the computer and it randomly decides french literature and then it studies war and then it studies physics and so forth and eventually it knows everything but how does this discover something new so there's two theories of how that would occur one is literally the monkey on the keyboard you just

[10:37](https://realalpha.app/v/U5YtR3OG5Uo/?t=637) keep randomly going in different directions it's called reinforcement learning you go a b c d and you do this at billions of times and eventually you discover something through randomness a better idea is that the theory of how extraordinary discoveries occur again this is unproven is you have a physicist who studied fluid flow and then they're working in energy and they see a pattern that's not fluid flow, but it kind of reminds them of that.

[11:06](https://realalpha.app/v/U5YtR3OG5Uo/?t=666) And then they apply the old techniques in a new field. It appears that that is going to be the solution. We don't, this is a long-winded way of saying, we don't know, it's somewhere between, my estimate is five to 10 years.