Smarter machines are going to need wiser humans
Everywhere we go these days, we hear people talking about the inevitable arrival of artificial general intelligence (AGI), usually understood as the moment when machines can perform every cognitive task as well as or better than humans. Some people await this moment with excitement, others with dread. Either way, the assumption is that sooner or later machines will cross some threshold and surpass us across the board. I have come to summarize my response to this perception in seven letters: AGI is BS. Part of the problem is that AGI has no agreed scientific definition. The term has increasingly become shorthand for the idea that intelligence exists on a single ladder, with today’s machines somewhere below us and tomorrow’s destined to climb past us.
