Will AGI happen sooner than we expect?<\/p>\n
Most experts agree<\/a> that it is a question of when, rather than if, we achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI). It is famously a term whose definition keeps shifting, but in common parlance it tends to refer to a form of AI that is able to match human capabilities in every task.<\/p>\n This is a separate conversation to whether gen-AI can keep improving. Gen-AI could theoretically make dramatic leaps while still remaining \u2018narrow AI\u2019, for example, highly capable but only within a defined scope. Equally, gen-AI could plateau without negating the possibility of AGI, since progress could come from other regions of the AI landscape.<\/p>\n So, will AGI emerge and, if so, when?<\/p>\n For business leaders this isn\u2019t a purely philosophical question, there\u2019s also a practical implication for workforce strategy. Right now, AI\u2019s limitations mean it is generally used as a tool to augment rather than replace human labour. But if AGI is as capable as a human, that may no longer hold true.<\/p>\n Perhaps AGI will give us firms where much of the workforce is AI. Or perhaps it will lead to a future where humans are still widely employed, but just in specific capacities: defining the problems AI works on, ensuring it adheres to defined values, and bringing a strain of higher-order creativity to the table that may continue to elude machine learning. Human employment may also shift to roles that require embodiment.<\/p>\n Until recently, surveys<\/a> of researchers tended to predict that AGI would arrive around 2060. However, with advancements in large language models (LLMs), and a belief that the transformer model architecture that underlies them could provide a pathway to AGI, that date has pushed forward. In 2023, a survey<\/a> of experts predicted AGI by 2040. More recently, leading players in AI have suggested we could see AGI before the end of this decade.<\/p>\n