alt Hacker News> It’s this myth that’s the root of the AGI conspiracy. A smarter-than-human machine that can do it all is not a technology. It’s a dream, unmoored from reality.
So, if you assume that AGI is fake and impossible, it's... A conspiracy. Sure.
Though, if you just finished quoting Turing (and folks like von Neumann), who thought it is possible, it would be good form for you to offer some reasoning that it's impossible, without alluding to the ineffable human soul or things like that.
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> if you assume that AGI is fake and impossible
That seems like a bad straw-man for "AI boosterism has the following hallmarks of conspiratorial thinking".
> offer some reasoning that it's impossible
Further on, the author has anticipated your objection:
> And there it is: You can’t prove it’s not true. [...] Conspiracy thinking looms again. Predictions about when AGI will arrive are made with the precision of numerologists counting down to the end of days. With no real stakes in the game, deadlines come and go with a shrug. Excuses are made and timelines are adjusted yet again.
The best thing I have ever read is von Neumann's ridiculous ideas and predictions about the weather.
It is the ultimate example of always having to be on guard against argumentum ad verecundiam.