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There’s a relatively mainstream definition of AGI: an AGI could learn to accomplish any intellectual task that human beings or animals can perform. Sometimes ag

There’s a relatively mainstream definition of AGI: an AGI could learn to accomplish any intellectual task that human beings or animals can perform. Sometimes agency is included in there to facilitate the learning and accomplishment. I think it’s as good a definition for a major milestone in AI development as any.

dr_dshiv 3y ago
The other mainstream definition comes from Peter Norvig , author of the most mainstream textbook on artificial intelligence (or at least the most cited). He defines AGI relative to narrow AI, using the development of general purpose digital computing as an analogy. Before general purpose digital computing, there were a wide range of specialized narrow forms of computing. Thus, he concludes that AGI is already here (it is similarly general purpose) but in the early days. I find his view pragmatic and helpful. https://www.noemamag.com/artificial-general-intelligence-is-already-here https://www.noemamag.com/artificial-general-intelligence-is-...
- pointlessone 3y ago
  I don't buy this argument. Specifically, Modalities. The claim is that "[b]y using modality-specific tokenizers or processing raw data streams, frontier models can, in principle, handle any known sensory or motor modality". Sure, you may get some sort of output but I'm quite confident you won't get anything useful without training the model on that kind of input. We barely started sticking narrow AI together. E.g. ChatGPT (LLM) can invoke Dall-e (text to image). Maybe AGI will turn out to be a bunch of narrow AIs in a trench coat. So far I haven't seen such a system. Tasks claim is a little stretched, too. For example, simple arithmetic. Does model actually do arithmetic or does it do text generation and the right answer just happens to be the most likely next token? Can we reliably tell one from the other to claim that model actually perform tasks other than just text generation?
bjorglo 3y ago
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TheAceOfHearts 3y ago
I'm familiar with this definition but find it lacking. It has utility as a working definition for gesturing towards a desirable goal. My problem with such a definition is that it doesn't clarify anything, it basically shifts the problem over to one where human or animal intelligence is treated as a magical black box. Sorry if this comes off as a bit pedantic, I understand that research into new and unknown fields can take a while before landing on more accurate and unambiguous definitions.
- pointlessone 3y ago
  I think of it a little differently. Human or animal intelligence here is a somewhat useful reference point. As an analogy, think of the first steam engines. They were replacing horses so why not measure their primary function in units of horse power? We had a somewhat rigorous physical framework for work and power but it probably wasn't well understood by the target audience to be useful. While we don't seem to have a scientifically rigorous definition of intelligence we still can have a somewhat useful discussions about utility in reference to another familiar instance of intelligence.

dr_dshiv 3y ago

The other mainstream definition comes from Peter Norvig , author of the most mainstream textbook on artificial intelligence (or at least the most cited). He defines AGI relative to narrow AI, using the development of general purpose digital computing as an analogy. Before general purpose digital computing, there were a wide range of specialized narrow forms of computing. Thus, he concludes that AGI is already here (it is similarly general purpose) but in the early days. I find his view pragmatic and helpful. https://www.noemamag.com/artificial-general-intelligence-is-already-here https://www.noemamag.com/artificial-general-intelligence-is-...

pointlessone 3y ago
I don't buy this argument. Specifically, Modalities. The claim is that "[b]y using modality-specific tokenizers or processing raw data streams, frontier models can, in principle, handle any known sensory or motor modality". Sure, you may get some sort of output but I'm quite confident you won't get anything useful without training the model on that kind of input. We barely started sticking narrow AI together. E.g. ChatGPT (LLM) can invoke Dall-e (text to image). Maybe AGI will turn out to be a bunch of narrow AIs in a trench coat. So far I haven't seen such a system. Tasks claim is a little stretched, too. For example, simple arithmetic. Does model actually do arithmetic or does it do text generation and the right answer just happens to be the most likely next token? Can we reliably tell one from the other to claim that model actually perform tasks other than just text generation?

bjorglo 3y ago

[dead]

TheAceOfHearts 3y ago

I'm familiar with this definition but find it lacking. It has utility as a working definition for gesturing towards a desirable goal. My problem with such a definition is that it doesn't clarify anything, it basically shifts the problem over to one where human or animal intelligence is treated as a magical black box. Sorry if this comes off as a bit pedantic, I understand that research into new and unknown fields can take a while before landing on more accurate and unambiguous definitions.

pointlessone 3y ago
I think of it a little differently. Human or animal intelligence here is a somewhat useful reference point. As an analogy, think of the first steam engines. They were replacing horses so why not measure their primary function in units of horse power? We had a somewhat rigorous physical framework for work and power but it probably wasn't well understood by the target audience to be useful. While we don't seem to have a scientifically rigorous definition of intelligence we still can have a somewhat useful discussions about utility in reference to another familiar instance of intelligence.