Maybe we could do with a new term. I mean "general intelligence" is pretty vague and could apply to all sorts of stuff.
Re "momentous milestone, ... obvious when it has been built" personally I think a major point is when the AIs could keep running the world without us, including building energy plants, chip factories and so on. AI independence maybe?
I think they are wrong on "AGI won't be a shock to the economy because diffusion takes decades" - ChatGPT reached 100m users in 2 months. These things can happen quickly.
steebo · 10h ago
With the release of OpenAI’s latest model o3, there is renewed debate about whether Artificial General Intelligence has already been achieved. The standard skeptic’s response to this is that there is no consensus on the definition of AGI. That is true, but misses the point — if AGI is such a momentous milestone, shouldn’t it be obvious when it has been built?
In this essay, we argue that AGI is not a milestone. It does not represent a discontinuity in the properties or impacts of AI systems. If a company declares that it has built AGI, based on whatever definition, it is not an actionable event. It will have no implications for businesses, developers, policymakers, or safety.
smartmic · 7h ago
Why do you repeat the first two paragraphs of the article here?
steebo · 2h ago
I put it in the text field when I made the submission. I assumed it would go in a summary block beneath the link (and it's not made clear what the function of the text field is, apart from being "optional.")
Re "momentous milestone, ... obvious when it has been built" personally I think a major point is when the AIs could keep running the world without us, including building energy plants, chip factories and so on. AI independence maybe?
I think they are wrong on "AGI won't be a shock to the economy because diffusion takes decades" - ChatGPT reached 100m users in 2 months. These things can happen quickly.
In this essay, we argue that AGI is not a milestone. It does not represent a discontinuity in the properties or impacts of AI systems. If a company declares that it has built AGI, based on whatever definition, it is not an actionable event. It will have no implications for businesses, developers, policymakers, or safety.
As you can see, I don't do this often.