Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is a theoretical AI system with capabilities that rival those of a human. Many researchers believe we are still decades, if not centuries, away from achieving AGI.
AGI is AI with capabilities that rival those of a human. While purely theoretical at this stage, in the future AGI may replicate human-like cognitive abilities including reasoning, problem solving, perception, learning, and language comprehension. When AI’s abilities are indistinguishable from those of a human, it will have passed what is known as the Turing test, first proposed by 20th-century computer scientist Alan Turing.
AI has made significant strides recently, but to date has passed the Turing test. We are still far from reaching a point where AI tools can understand, communicate, and act with the same nuance and sensitivity of a human and, critically understand the meaning behind it.
We have already seen gen AI do amazing things in recent years, from writing code to composing sonnets in seconds. But there’s a critical difference between AI and AGI. Although the latest gen AI technologies, including ChatGPT, DALL-E, and others, have received a lot of publicity, they are essentially very good prediction machines, that can predict, with a high degree of accuracy, the answer to a specific prompt because they’ve been trained on large amounts of data. However, AI does not offer the level of human capability in terms of creativity, logical reasoning, sensory perception, cognitive and emotional abilities that are possible with AGI tools.
What is Needed for AI to Become AGI?
There are eight capabilities AI needs to master before achieving AGI and these include:
How will We Access AGI Tools?
Currently, most of us engage with AI via 2D screens such as laptops, smartphones, and TVs. How we access AI and AGI in the future is being researched by those with large tech budgets. A possible mode of access may be augmented reality and virtual reality headsets, through which users experience an immersive virtual world, which is already familiar to some of us. Another option could be humans accessing the AI world through implanted neurons in the brain, enabling a human to control a phone or computer purely by thought. A third mode could see the development of mechanised limbs that are connected to humans, machines or programmes humanoid robots.
AGI is still decades away, but what we do know, is AI is here to stay . . . and when it does arrive, it’s going to be a very big deal for every aspect of our lives, businesses, and societies.
