The AGI Great Debate

We have to categorize intelligence by taking evolution into account.

Image generated in Adobe Express

Some of us question the definition of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The point is we have to categorize intelligence by taking evolution into account.

“What AGI means and whether it is a coherent concept are still under debate.”

- Melanie Mitchell

Disembodied Machine

Many people who study biological intelligence are also skeptical that so-called ‘cognitive’ aspects of intelligence can be separated from its other modes and captured in a disembodied machine. Evidence also shows that individual intelligence relies deeply on one’s participation in social and cultural environments. Psychologists have shown that important aspects of human intelligence are grounded in one’s embodied physical and emotional experiences.

AGI

AGI is a type of AI that can perform as well or better than humans on a wide range of cognitive tasks, as opposed to narrow AI, which is designed for specific tasks. It is one of various definitions of strong AI. Other aspects of the human mind besides intelligence are relevant to the concept of AGI or strong AI, and these play a major role in science fiction and the ethics of AI.

Consciousness

To have subjective experience – Thomas Nagel explains that it “feels like” something to be conscious of. If we are not conscious then it doesn't feel like anything. Nagel uses the example of a bat. We can sensibly ask, “What does it feel like to be a bat?” However, we are unlikely to ask, “What does it feel like to be a toaster?” Nagel concludes that a bat appears to be conscious (i.e., has consciousness), but a toaster does not.

Self-Awareness

To have conscious awareness of oneself as a separate individual, especially to be consciously aware of one's thoughts. This is opposed to simply being the “subject of one's thought” – an operating system or debugger can be “aware of itself” (that is, to represent itself in the same way it represents everything else), but this is not what people typically mean when they use the term “self-awareness.”

Sentience

The ability to “feel” perceptions or emotions subjectively, as opposed to the ability to reason about perceptions or, regarding emotions, to be aware that the situation requires urgency, kindness, or aggression. For example, we can build a machine that knows which objects in its field of view are red, but this machine will not necessarily know what red looks like.

Epilogue

“It’s not Artificial Intelligence I’m worried about, it’s human stupidity.”

- Neil Jacobstein 

Body hardware equipped with sensors, actuators, and organs is an absolute requirement but insufficient. Every intelligence must be alive – always active and autonomously thinking, implying consciousness. Denying AGI means denying human intelligence. Humans are a product of evolution, so let us study the evolution of the brain, from insects to mammals to primates.

I first published this article on LinkedIn; check out my articles on neuroscience and neurorobotics.