What counts as AGI? Six definitions from the people building it
François Chollet defines intelligence as the efficiency of learning new skills, Yudkowsky and Yampolskiy offer their own tests, Kurzweil holds to a harder Turing test, and Altman and Amodei call the term poorly formed. Without an agreed definition, claims that AGI is near or far cannot be compared.
Is there an agreed definition of AGI? Show answer
No. The people most often quoted about it measure different things, so their forecasts answer different questions.
How does François Chollet define intelligence? Show answer
As the efficiency with which you acquire new skills at tasks you did not previously know about or prepare for. It is not what you know or what you can do.
Why does Chollet say skill is no sign of intelligence in a machine? Show answer
An experimenter can always buy skill with hard-coded knowledge or more data. A system needing enormous training sets is mostly a lookup table.
How does Eliezer Yudkowsky define general intelligence? Show answer
By the gap between humans and chimpanzees. Human skills evolved for hand axes and tribal politics generalized far enough to reach the Moon.
What is the classic definition of AGI that Roman Yampolskiy states? Show answer
A system capable of performing in any domain a human could perform. Superintelligence is a system superior to all humans in all domains.
In what sense does Yampolskiy say we already have AGI? Show answer
Averaged over common human tasks, he argues current systems are smarter than an average human. They are not smarter than elite individuals in their own fields.
What test does Ray Kurzweil tie his 2029 forecast to? Show answer
A Turing test that runs for hours, with a sophisticated judge who knows what computers can and cannot do. He admits the standard is not very well defined.
Why does Sam Altman avoid predicting when AGI will arrive? Show answer
He calls the question very poorly formed because people use extremely different definitions. He prefers asking when systems can do specific things.
What does Dario Amodei use in place of the term AGI? Show answer
Powerful AI, defined by a list of capabilities such as being smarter than a Nobel Prize winner across most fields and working autonomously for hours to weeks.
Where do the experts split on the Turing test? Show answer
Kurzweil and Yampolskiy defend a long, demanding version. Chollet rejects every version because human judges are unreliable and imitation is the wrong target.
What should you ask when someone gives a date for AGI? Show answer
Which definition and which test they mean. Without that, the date cannot be compared with anyone else's.
What sign of AGI would Altman look for in the world? Show answer
A system that significantly increases the rate of scientific discovery, rather than an impressive demonstration.