Unleashing the Future: Alan Turing’s Theory and the Impending Rise of Artificial General Intelligence
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Over the past five years, I’ve stood before numerous audiences, encouraging them to ponder the exponential trajectory of AI’s development.
As I often say, the speed at which exponentially growing technologies evolve and the remarkable strides they take can often defy intuition. We’ve witnessed extraordinary milestones, from AlphaGo’s awe-inspiring victory over the world’s best Go player to the astonishing musical compositions of AI-driven systems like AIVA. However, most of what I shared was speculative — a glimpse into a future borrowed from minds that are wiser, smarter, and more intimately acquainted with the technology than mine.
The examples that I refer to above have remained key milestones and staple references for the most part. But we’re now at a stage where the tables have turned — where the examples of AI demonstrating mindblowing capabilities are endless, with new releases from startups and existing software giants filtering our social media feeds on a daily basis. The pace of research has been exponentially growing, with over 3000 AI papers released each day.
I now confidently say that AI is experiencing its long-awaited “exponential moment.” (or, as Max Tegmark says, the “holy shit” moment).
The Quest for Artificial General Intelligence
The quest for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) has captivated the minds of scientists, researchers, and technology enthusiasts for decades. AGI is often referred to as true machine intelligence (although I disagree with this assessment. I still believe that any intelligence exhibited by a machine is intelligence — it’s just a different kind of intelligence, whether cognitive, logical, or creative). It’s considered the holy grail of artificial intelligence. An AGI system would be capable of understanding, learning, and executing tasks with human-like proficiency across a wide range of domains. To delve deeper into the differences between Narrow and General AI systems, I can point you to this simple guide that I wrote several years ago. Or, better yet, I can point you to Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence, a book that completely shifted my worldview and was the trigger that led…
