ARTIFICIAL GENERAL INTELLIGENCE

What is Strong AI?

Strong artificial intelligence (AI), also known as artificial general intelligence (AGI) or
general AI, is a theoretical form of AI used to describe a certain mindset of AI development.
If researchers are able to develop Strong AI, the machine would require an intelligence equal to
humans; it would have a self-aware consciousness that has the ability to solve problems, learn,
and plan for the future.

Strong AI aims to create intelligent machines that are indistinguishable from the human
mind. But just like a child, the AI machine would have to learn through input and experiences,
constantly progressing and advancing its abilities over time.

While AI researchers in both academia and private sectors are invested in the creation of
artificial general intelligence (AGI), it only exists today as a theoretical concept versus a tangible
reality. While some individuals, like Marvin Minsky, have been quoted as being overly
optimistic in what we could accomplish in a few decades in the field of AI; others would say that
Strong AI systems cannot even be developed. Until the measures of success, such as intelligence
and understanding, are explicitly defined, they are correct in this belief. For now, many use the
Turing test to evaluate intelligence of an AI system.

Fig. 1. Artificial Intelligence

Strong AI versus weak AI:
Weak AI, also known as narrow AI, focuses on performing a specific task, such as
answering questions based on user input or playing chess. It can perform one type of task, but
not both, whereas Strong AI can perform a variety of functions, eventually teaching itself to
solve new problems. Weak AI relies on human interference to define the parameters of its
learning algorithms and to provide the relevant training data to ensure accuracy. While human
input accelerates the growth phase of Strong AI, it is not required, and over time, it develops a
human-like consciousness instead of simulating it, like Weak AI. Self-driving cars and virtual
assistants, like Siri, are examples of Weak AI.

What is needed for AI to become AGI?

Here are eight capabilities AI needs to master before achieving AGI.
1. Visual Perception (Fig. 2)
2. Audio Perception (Fig. 3)
3. Fine Motor Skills (Fig. 4)
4. Natural Language Processing (Fig. 5)
5. Problem Solving (Fig. 6)
6. Navigation (Fig. 7)
7. Creativity (Fig. 8)
8. Social and Emotional Engagement (Fig. 9)

Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5

Fig. 6 Fig. 7 Fig. 8 Fig. 9

Important to do now to prepare for AGI:
First, as we create successively more powerful systems, we want to deploy them and gain
experience with operating them in the real world. We believe this is the best way to carefully
steward AGI into existence—a gradual transition to a world with AGI is better than a sudden
one. We expect powerful AI to make the rate of progress in the world much faster, and we think
it’s better to adjust to this incrementally.

A gradual transition gives people, policymakers, and institutions time to understand

what’s happening, personally experience the benefits and downsides of these systems, adapt our
economy, and to put regulation in place. It also allows for society and AI to co-evolve, and for
people collectively to figure out what they want while the stakes are relatively low.

We currently believe the best way to successfully navigate AI deployment challenges is

with a tight feedback loop of rapid learning and careful iteration. Society will face major
questions about what AI systems are allowed to do, how to combat bias, how to deal with job
displacement, and more. The optimal decisions will depend on the path the technology takes, and
like any new field, most expert predictions have been wrong so far. This makes planning in a
vacuum very difficult.

Generally speaking, we think more usage of AI in the world will lead to good, and want
to promote it (by putting models in our API, open-sourcing them, etc.). We believe that
democratized access will also lead to more and better research, decentralized power, more
benefits, and a broader set of people contributing new ideas.

As our systems get closer to AGI, we are becoming increasingly cautious with the
creation and deployment of our models. Our decisions will require much more caution than
society usually applies to new technologies, and more caution than many users would like. Some
people in the AI field think the risks of AGI (and successor systems) are fictitious; we would be
delighted if they turn out to be right, but we are going to operate as if these risks are existential.

At some point, the balance between the upsides and downsides of deployments (such as
empowering malicious actors, creating social and economic disruptions, and accelerating an
unsafe race) could shift, in which case we would significantly change our plans around
continuous deployment.
Strong AI trends:
While there are no clear examples of strong artificial intelligence, the field of AI is
rapidly innovating. Another AI theory has emerged, known as artificial superintelligence (ASI),
super intelligence, or Super AI. This type of AI surpasses strong AI in human intelligence and
ability. However, Super AI is still purely speculative as we have yet to achieve examples of
Strong AI.

With that said, there are fields where AI is playing a more important role, such as:

● Cybersecurity: Artificial intelligence will take over more roles in organizations’

cybersecurity measures, including breach detection, monitoring, threat intelligence,
incident response, and risk analysis.
● Entertainment and content creation: Computer science programs are already getting
better and better at producing content, whether it is copywriting, poetry, video games, or
even movies. OpenAI’s GBT-3 text generation AI app is already creating content that is
almost impossible to distinguish from copy that was written by humans.
● Behavioral recognition and prediction: Prediction algorithms will make AI stronger,
ranging from applications in weather and stock market predictions to, even more
interesting, predictions of human behavior. This also raises the questions around implicit
biases and ethical AI. Some AI researchers in the AI community are pushing for a set of
anti-discriminatory rules, which is often associated with the hashtag responsibleAI.

How will people access AGI tools?

Today, most people engage with AI in the same ways they’ve accessed digital power for
years: via 2D screens such as laptops, smartphones, and TVs. The future will probably look a lot
different. Some of the brightest minds (and biggest budgets) in tech are devoting themselves to
figuring out how we’ll access AI (and possibly AGI) in the future. One example you’re likely
familiar with is augmented reality and virtual reality headsets, through which users experience an
immersive virtual world. Another example would be humans accessing the AI world through
implanted neurons in the brain. This might sound like something out of a sci-fi novel, but it’s not.
In January 2024, Neuralink implanted a chip in a human brain, with the goal of allowing the
human to control a phone or computer purely by thought.
A final mode of interaction with AI seems ripped from sci-fi as well: robots. These can
take the form of mechanized limbs connected to humans or machine bases or even programmed
humanoid robots.
What advances could speed up the development of AGI?
Advances in algorithms, computing, and data have brought about the recent acceleration
of AI. We can get a sense of what the future may hold by looking at these three capabilities:

● Algorithmic advances and new robotics approaches. We may need entirely new
approaches to algorithms and robots to achieve AGI. One way researchers are thinking
about this is by exploring the concept of embodied cognition. The idea is that robots will
need to learn very quickly from their environments through a multitude of senses, just
like humans do when they’re very young. Similarly, to develop cognition in the same way
humans do, robots will need to experience the physical world like we do (because we’ve
designed our spaces based on how our bodies and minds work).
The latest AI-based robot systems are using gen AI technologies including large language
models (LLMs) and large behavior models (LBMs). LLMs give robots advanced
natural-language-processing capabilities like what we’ve seen with generative AI models
and other LLM-enabled tools. LBMs allow robots to emulate human actions and
movements. These models are created by training AI on large data sets of observed
human actions and movements. Ultimately, these models could allow robots to perform a
wide range of activities with limited task-specific training.
A real advance would be to develop new AI systems that start out with a certain level of
built-in knowledge, just like a baby fawn knows how to stand and feed without being
taught. It’s possible that the recent success of deep-learning-based AI systems may have
drawn research attention away from the more fundamental cognitive work required to
make progress toward AGI.
● Computing advancements. Graphics processing units (GPUs) have made the major AI
advances of the past few years possible. Here’s why. For one, GPUs are designed to
handle multiple tasks related to visual data simultaneously, including rendering images,
videos, and graphics-related computations. Their efficiency at handling massive amounts
of visual data makes them useful in training complex neural networks. They also have a
high memory bandwidth, meaning faster data transfer. Before AGI can be achieved,
similar significant advancements will need to be made in computing infrastructure.
Quantum computing is touted as one way of achieving this. However, today’s quantum
computers, while powerful, aren’t yet ready for everyday applications. But once they are,
they could play a role in the achievement of AGI.
● Growth in data volume and new sources of data. Some experts believe 5G mobile
infrastructure could bring about a significant increase in data. That’s because the
technology could power a surge in connected devices, or the Internet of Things. But, for a
variety of reasons, we think most of the benefits of 5G have already appeared. For AGI to
be achieved, there will need to be another catalyst for a huge increase in data volume.
New robotics approaches could yield new sources of training data. Placing human-like
robots among us could allow companies to mine large sets of data that mimic our own
senses to help the robots train themselves. Advanced self-driving cars are one example:
data is being collected from cars that are already on the roads, so these vehicles are acting
as a training set for future self-driving cars.
 Fig. 10. Expected Year for AGI

References:

1. https://openai.com/blog/planning-for-agi-and-beyond
2. https://www.ibm.com/topics/strong-ai
3. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-artificial-genera
l-intelligence-agi