On Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – Next level in AI

Source: This post on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) has been created based on the article “Next level in AI” published in “Business Standard” on 11^th December 2023.

UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper 3 Science and Technology – Developments and their applications and effects in everyday life.

News: The article discusses Project Q* which might lead to the development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). It highlights its significant features and the associated challenges as well.

Read more about AGI here.

What is Project Q*?

1. Project Q* refers to a new AI model being developed by the ChatGPT owner OpenAI.
2. It is rumoured that it can solve mathematical problems of up to high-school standards, including those that are not part of its training data, with better accuracy than previous AI models like ChatGPT-4.
3. It is being considered as a breakthrough in Artificial General Intelligence.

What are the prominent features of AGI?

Better Reasoning Capability: Perfect scores on high-school maths could imply Q* is capable of logical reasoning, rather than merely recognizing and duplicating familiar patterns ingrained in its training data.
This would bring the new AI one step closer to becoming AGI — artificial general intelligence — a program that is capable of reasoning as well as absorbing, deciphering, and replicating variations on patterns.

Not Limited to Narrow Tasks: With more advancements, AGI may achieve a high level of intelligence, surpassing the current limitations of most AI, which predominantly focuses on specific, limited tasks through tailored algorithms.

May mimic a Living Being: An authentic AGI model would exhibit characteristics of self-awareness or consciousness, enabled by its capacity to introspect on its own being. It may possess qualities like curiosity, self-will, and an inclination toward self-preservation—traits often associated with living organisms.

Ability to Teach Itself: It would enable autonomous models to solve a really vast range of problems and tackle a wide range of tasks better than humans can. It should also be able to teach itself to perform new tasks without instructions.

Learn about the Difference between General AI and Narrow AI here.

What are the challenges with AGI?

Existential Risk: Such immense cognitive abilities, combined with a misunderstanding of human values or goals, could lead AGI to make decisions harmful to humanity or disrupt existing systems, inadvertently posing existential risks to our civilization.

Ethical Issues: Ensuring such a model is “ethical” and “altruistic” would be difficult. E thical principles vary across cultures and contexts, making it complex to codify universal rules.

Question for practice:

Artificial Intelligence brings with it not just vast opportunities, but grave challenges as well. Discuss in the context of the emergence of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).