Showing posts with label Artificial general intelligence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Artificial general intelligence. Show all posts

What Is Artificial General Intelligence?



Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is defined as the software representation of generalized human cognitive capacities that enables the AGI system to solve problems when presented with new tasks. 

In other words, it's AI's capacity to learn similarly to humans.



Strong AI, full AI, and general intelligent action are some names for it. 

The phrase "strong AI," however, is only used in few academic publications to refer to computer systems that are sentient or aware. 

These definitions may change since specialists from many disciplines see human intelligence from various angles. 

For instance, computer scientists often characterize human intelligence as the capacity to accomplish objectives. 

On the other hand, general intelligence is defined by psychologists in terms of survival or adaptation.

Weak or narrow AI, in contrast to strong AI, is made up of programs created to address a single issue and lacks awareness since it is not meant to have broad cognitive capacities. 

Autonomous cars and IBM's Watson supercomputer are two examples. 

Nevertheless, AGI is defined in computer science as an intelligent system having full or comprehensive knowledge as well as cognitive computing skills.



As of right now, there are no real AGI systems; they are still the stuff of science fiction. 

The long-term objective of these systems is to perform as well as humans do. 

However, due to AGI's superior capacity to acquire and analyze massive amounts of data at a far faster rate than the human mind, it may be possible for AGI to be more intelligent than humans.



Artificial intelligence (AI) is now capable of carrying out a wide range of functions, including providing tailored suggestions based on prior web searches. 

Additionally, it can recognize various items for autonomous cars to avoid, recognize malignant cells during medical inspections, and serve as the brain of home automation. 

Additionally, it may be utilized to find possibly habitable planets, act as intelligent assistants, be in charge of security, and more.



Naturally, AGI seems to far beyond such capacities, and some scientists are concerned this may result in a dystopian future

Elon Musk said that sentient AI would be more hazardous than nuclear war, while Stephen Hawking advised against its creation because it would see humanity as a possible threat and act accordingly.


Despite concerns, most scientists agree that genuine AGI is decades or perhaps centuries away from being developed and must first meet a number of requirements (which are always changing) in order to be achieved. 

These include the capacity for logic, tact, puzzle-solving, and making decisions in the face of ambiguity. 



Additionally, it must be able to plan, learn, and communicate in natural language, as well as represent information, including common sense. 

AGI must also have the capacity to detect (hear, see, etc.) and output the ability to act, such as moving items and switching places to explore. 



How far along are we in the process of developing artificial general intelligence, and who is involved?

In accordance with a 2020 study from the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (GCRI), academic institutions, businesses, and different governmental agencies are presently working on 72 recognized AGI R&D projects. 



According to the poll, projects nowadays are often smaller, more geographically diversified, less open-source, more focused on humanitarian aims than academic ones, and more centered in private firms than projects in 2017. 

The comparison also reveals a decline in projects with academic affiliations, an increase in projects sponsored by corporations, a rise in projects with a humanitarian emphasis, a decline in programs with ties to the military, and a decline in US-based initiatives.


In AGI R&D, particularly military initiatives that are solely focused on fundamental research, governments and organizations have very little roles to play. 

However, recent programs seem to be more varied and are classified using three criteria, including business projects that are engaged in AGI safety and have humanistic end objectives. 

Additionally, it covers tiny private enterprises with a variety of objectives including academic programs that do not concern themselves with AGI safety but rather the progress of knowledge.

One of the most well-known organizations working on AGI is Carnegie Mellon University, which has a project called ACT-R that aims to create a generic cognitive architecture based on the basic cognitive and perceptual functions that support the human mind. 

The project may be thought of as a method of describing how the brain is structured such that different processing modules can result in cognition.


Another pioneering organization testing the limits of AGI is Microsoft Research AI, which has carried out a number of research initiatives, including developing a data set to counter prejudice for machine-learning models. 

The business is also investigating ways to advance moral AI, create a responsible AI standard, and create AI strategies and evaluations to create a framework that emphasizes the advancement of mankind.


The person behind the well-known video game franchises Commander Keen and Doom has launched yet another intriguing endeavor. 

Keen Technologies, John Carmack's most recent business, is an AGI development company that has already raised $20 million in funding from former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Cue founder Daniel Gross. 

Carmack is one of the AGI optimists who believes that it would ultimately help mankind and result in the development of an AI mind that acts like a human, which might be used as a universal remote worker.


So what does AGI's future hold? 

The majority of specialists are doubtful that AGI will ever be developed, and others believe that the urge to even develop artificial intelligence comparable to humans will eventually go away. 

Others are working to develop it so that everyone will benefit.

Nevertheless, the creation of AGI is still in the planning stages, and in the next decades, little progress is anticipated. 

Nevertheless, throughout history, scientists have debated whether developing technologies with the potential to change people's lives will benefit society as a whole or endanger it. 

This proposal was considered before to the invention of the vehicle, during the development of AC electricity, and when the atomic bomb was still only a theory.


~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

Find Jai on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram


You may also want to read more about Artificial Intelligence here.

Be sure to refer to the complete & active AI Terms Glossary here.


Artificial Intelligence - Who Is Ben Goertzel (1966–)?


Ben Goertzel is the founder and CEO of SingularityNET, a blockchain AI company, as well as the chairman of Novamente LLC, a research professor at Xiamen University's Fujian Key Lab for Brain-Like Intelligent Systems, the chief scientist of Mozi Health and Hanson Robotics in Shenzhen, China, and the chair of the OpenCog Foundation, Humanity+, and Artificial General Intelligence Society conference series. 

Goertzel has long wanted to create a good artificial general intelligence and use it in bioinformatics, finance, gaming, and robotics.

He claims that, despite AI's current popularity, it is currently superior than specialists in a number of domains.

Goertzel divides AI advancement into three stages, each of which represents a step toward a global brain (Goertzel 2002, 2): • the intelligent Internet • the full-fledged Singularity Goertzel presented a lecture titled "Decentralized AI: The Power and the Necessity" at TEDxBerkeley in 2019.

He examines artificial intelligence in its present form as well as its future in this discussion.

"The relevance of decentralized control in leading AI to the next stages, the strength of decentralized AI," he emphasizes (Goertzel 2019a).

In the evolution of artificial intelligence, Goertzel distinguishes three types: artificial narrow intelligence, artificial broad intelligence, and artificial superintelligence.

Artificial narrow intelligence refers to machines that can "address extremely specific issues... better than humans" (Goertzel 2019a).

In certain restricted activities, such as chess and Go, this kind of AI has outperformed a human.

Ray Kurzweil, an American futurologist and inventor, coined the phrase "narrow AI." Artificial general intelligence (AGI) refers to intelligent computers that can "generate knowledge" in a variety of fields and have "humanlike autonomy." By 2029, according to Goertzel, this kind of AI will have reached the same level of intellect as humans.

Artificial superintelligence (ASI) is based on both narrow and broad AI, but it can also reprogram itself.



By 2045, he claims, this kind of AI will be smarter than the finest human brains in terms of "scientific innovation, general knowledge, and social abilities" (Goertzel 2019a).

According to Goertzel, Facebook, Google, and a number of colleges and companies are all actively working on AGI.

According to Goertzel, the shift from AI to AGI will occur within the next five to thirty years.

Goertzel is also interested in artificial intelligence-assisted life extension.

He thinks that artificial intelligence's exponential advancement will lead to technologies that will increase human life span and health eternally.

He predicts that by 2045, a singularity featuring a drastic increase in "human health span" would have occurred (Goertzel 2012).

Vernor Vinge popularized the term "singularity" in his 1993 article "The Coming Technological Singularity." Ray Kurzweil coined the phrase in his 2005 book The Singularity is Near.

The Technological Singularity, according to both writers, is the merging of machine and human intellect as a result of a fast development in new technologies, particularly robots and AI.

The thought of an impending singularity excites Goertzel.

SingularityNET is his major current initiative, which entails the construction of a worldwide network of artificial intelligence researchers interested in developing, sharing, and monetizing AI technology, software, and services.

By developing a decentralized protocol that enables a full stack AI solution, Goertzel has made a significant contribution to this endeavor.

SingularityNET, as a decentralized marketplace, provides a variety of AI technologies, including text generation, AI Opinion, iAnswer, Emotion Recognition, Market Trends, OpenCog Pattern Miner, and its own cryptocurrency, AGI token.

SingularityNET is presently cooperating with Domino's Pizza in Malaysia and Singapore (Khan 2019).



Domino's is interested in leveraging SingularityNET technologies to design a marketing plan, with the goal of providing the finest products and services to its consumers via the use of unique algorithms.

Domino's thinks that by incorporating the AGI ecosystem into their operations, they will be able to provide value and service in the food delivery market.

Goertzel has reacted to scientist Stephen Hawking's challenge, which claimed that AI might lead to the extinction of human civilization.

Given the current situation, artificial super intelligence's mental state will be based on past AI generations, thus "selling, spying, murdering, and gambling are the key aims and values in the mind of the first super intelligence," according to Goertzel (Goertzel 2019b).

He acknowledges that if humans desire compassionate AI, they must first improve their own treatment of one another.

With four years, Goertzel worked for Hanson Robotics in Hong Kong.

He collaborated with Sophia, Einstein, and Han, three well-known robots.

"Great platforms for experimenting with AI algorithms, including cognitive architectures like OpenCog that aim at human-level AI," he added of the robots (Goertzel 2018).

Goertzel argues that essential human values may be retained for future generations in Sophia-like robot creatures after the Technological Singularity.

Decentralized networks like SingularityNET and OpenCog, according to Goertzel, provide "AIs with human-like values," reducing AI hazards to humanity (Goertzel 2018).

Because human values are complicated in nature, Goertzel feels that encoding them as a rule list is wasteful.

Brain-computer interfacing (BCI) and emotional interfacing are two ways Goertzel offers.

Humans will become "cyborgs," with their brains physically linked to computational-intelligence modules, and the machine components of the cyborgs will be able to read the moral-value-evaluation structures of the human mind directly from the biological components of the cyborgs (Goertzel 2018).

Goertzel uses Elon Musk's Neuralink as an example.

Because it entails invasive trials with human brains and a lot of unknowns, Goertzel doubts that this strategy will succeed.

"Emotional and spiritual connections between people and AIs, rather than Ethernet cables or Wifi signals, are used to link human and AI brains," according to the second method (Goertzel 2018).

To practice human values, he proposes that AIs participate in emotional and social connection with humans via face expression detection and mirroring, eye contact, and voice-based emotion recognition.

To that end, Goertzel collaborated with SingularityNET, Hanson AI, and Lia Inc on the "Loving AI" research project, which aims to assist artificial intelligences speak and form intimate connections with humans.

A funny video of actor Will Smith on a date with Sophia the Robot is presently available on the Loving AI website.

Sophia can already make sixty facial expressions and understand human language and emotions, according to the video of the date.

When linked to a network like SingularityNET, humanoid robots like Sophia obtain "ethical insights and breakthroughs...

via language," according to Goertzel (Goertzel 2018).

Then, through a shared internet "mindcloud," robots and AIs may share what they've learnt.

Goertzel is also the chair of the Artificial General Intelligence Society's Conference Series on Artificial General Intelligence, which has been conducted yearly since 2008.

The Journal of Artificial General Intelligence is a peer-reviewed open-access academic periodical published by the organization. Goertzel is the editor of the conference proceedings series.


Jai Krishna Ponnappan


You may also want to read more about Artificial Intelligence here.


See also: 

General and Narrow AI; Superintelligence; Technological Singularity.


Further Reading:


Goertzel, Ben. 2002. Creating Internet Intelligence: Wild Computing, Distributed Digital Consciousness, and the Emerging Global Brain. New York: Springer.

Goertzel, Ben. 2012. “Radically Expanding the Human Health Span.” TEDxHKUST. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMUbRPvcB54.

Goertzel, Ben. 2017. “Sophia and SingularityNET: Q&A.” H+ Magazine, November 5, 2017. https://hplusmagazine.com/2017/11/05/sophia-singularitynet-qa/.

Goertzel, Ben. 2018. “Emotionally Savvy Robots: Key to a Human-Friendly Singularity.” https://www.hansonrobotics.com/emotionally-savvy-robots-key-to-a-human-friendly-singularity/.

Goertzel, Ben. 2019a. “Decentralized AI: The Power and the Necessity.” TEDxBerkeley, March 9, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4manxX5U-0.

Goertzel, Ben. 2019b. “Will Artificial Intelligence Kill Us?” July 31, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDClKEORtko.

Goertzel, Ben, and Stephan Vladimir Bugaj. 2006. The Path to Posthumanity: 21st Century Technology and Its Radical Implications for Mind, Society, and Reality. Bethesda, MD: Academica Press.

Khan, Arif. 2019. “SingularityNET and Domino’s Pizza Announce a Strategic Partnership.” https://blog.singularitynet.io/singularitynet-and-dominos-pizza-announce-a-strategic-partnership-cbbe21f80fc7.

Vinge, Vernor. 1993. “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era.” In Vision 21: Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering in the Era of Cyberspace, 11–22. NASA: Lewis Research Center





What Is Artificial General Intelligence?

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is defined as the software representation of generalized human cognitive capacities that enables the ...