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djoldmanyesterday at 6:52 PM8 repliesview on HN

Anytime I see "Artificial General Intelligence," "AGI," "ASI," etc., I mentally replace it with "something no one has defined meaningfully."

Or the long version: "something about which no conclusions can be drawn because the proposed definitions lack sufficient precision and completeness."

Or the short versions: "Skippetyboop," "plipnikop," and "zingybang."


Replies

wise_bloodtoday at 7:17 AM

the ARC definition is the one I like the best, something like:

"it is AGI when we can no longer come up with tasks easy for humans to solve but hard for computers"

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chrysopraceyesterday at 11:51 PM

I've largely avoided using the term "AI" to refer to the current LLM and generative technology because it's loaded with too much ambiguity and glosses over the problems with those technologies in the context of conversations around it.

ozgungyesterday at 10:02 PM

That’s the problem with the discussions on AI. No one defines the terms they use.

If we define AGI as an AI not doing a preset task but can be used for general purpose, then we already have that. If we define it as human level intelligence at _every_ task, then some humans fail to be an AGI. If we define AGI as a magic algorithm that does every task autonomously and successfully then that thing may not exist at all, even inside our brains.

When the AGI term was first coined they probably meant something like HAL 9000. We have that now (and HAL gaining self-awareness or refusing commands are just for dramatic effect and not necessary). Goalposts are not stable in this game.

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politelemonyesterday at 8:34 PM

The enskibidification of AI

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shepherdjerredyesterday at 9:54 PM

They define AGI in their charter

> artificial general intelligence (AGI)—by which we mean highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work

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random3yesterday at 10:54 PM

I call these "romantic definitions" or "gesticulations". For private use (personal or even internal to teams) they can be great placeholders, assuming the goal is to refine vocabulary.

logicchainsyesterday at 7:14 PM

>Anytime I see "Artificial General Intelligence," "AGI," "ASI," etc., I mentally replace it with "something no one has defined meaningfully."

There are lots of meaningful definitions, the people saying we haven't reached AGI just don't use them. For most of the last half-century people would have agreed that machines that can pass the Turing test and win Math Olympiad gold are AGI.

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TacticalCoderyesterday at 11:40 PM

That's no argument: the exact same can be said for what "AI" is: "Skippetyboop," "plipnikop," and "zingybang.".

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