There's exploration and exploitation. Exploration (discovering fire and learning to create/harness it, inventing language) is slow and expensive. The current

There's exploration and exploitation. Exploration (discovering fire and learning to create/harness it, inventing language) is slow and expensive. The current focus isn't on replicating human exploration with AI, though, I don't think (though it may become the focus later). Daily stories about AI are mostly mostly about "We got AI to do this thing humans do (sorta)!", which is much more focused on exploiting existing knowledge, and this is true with schoolkids as well, at least to start. Exploitation of existing knowledge is much faster and easier (though still expensive!): load up what we've all learned so far so we can continue to make progress. I think this is what Carmack is referring to. I don't think anyone is saying ChatGPT could discover fire, or cook food. I am of the opinion that we'll know when we have real AGI because it'll be able to fold my laundry. One can dream. On the other hand, I'm not so sure an LLM couldn't invent a language, particularly one to use with another AI. It's sci-fi from 1970, but I just rewatched "Colossus: The Forbin Project"[0] recently which features this as a plot point. Really enjoyed it years ago when I first saw it, but it's improved with age (at least for me) now that we are closer to AI. [0]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064177/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064177/