Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is the intelligence of a machine that could successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can. It is a primary goal of some artificial intelligence research and a common topic in science fiction and future studies.
Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is something of a holy grail for many artificial intelligence researchers. Today’s narrow AI systems are only capable of specific tasks — such as internet searches, driving a car, or playing a video game — but none of the systems today can do all of these tasks. A single AGI would be able to accomplish a breadth and variety of cognitive tasks similar to that of people.
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is an emerging field aiming at the building of “thinking machines”; that is, general-purpose systems with intelligence comparable to that of the human mind (and perhaps ultimately well beyond human general intelligence). While this was the original goal of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the mainstream of AI research has turned toward domain-dependent and problem-specific solutions; therefore it has become necessary to use a new name to indicate research that still pursues the “Grand AI Dream”. Similar labels for this kind of research include “Strong AI”, “Human-level AI”, etc.
MIT AGI Mission: Engineer Intelligence
Goal 1: Avoid the pitfalls of “black box” futurism thinking that results in hype that is detached from scientific understanding
Goal 2: Avoid the pitfalls of “I’m just a scientist” that results in ignorance to near-term negative consequences that are preventable with good engineeringWhat drives humans to explore the unknown?
“For all the different forms it takes in different historical periods, for all the worthy and unworthy motives that lie behind it, exploration—travel for the sake of discovery and adventure—is a human compulsion, a human obsession even; it is a defining element of a distinctly human identity, and it will never rest at any frontier, whether terrestrial or extra-terrestrial.”
– Stewart Weaver, Exploration: A Very Short Introduction“Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. … Whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
Charles Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle (sailed in 1831)You can reach Lecture slides: https://goo.gl/mRZcFU
