Human beings have been effortlessly endeavoring toward creating different types of artificial intelligence and integrating several sectors with advanced general artificial intelligence technologies. Synthesizing artificial intelligence earnestly began in the late 1950s, when a couple of scientists attended a workshop in Dartmouth College NH, to develop machines that could use language. This workshop is known to be the first step at the beginning of AI history.
Now, several years later, scientists and researchers have divided artificial intelligence into two parts: artificial narrow intelligence, the one we have already developed, and general artificial intelligence, the one that’s yet to be achieved.
To make the whole system work, machines have to be programmed so that they can from past inputs, adjust to algorithm changes or new inputs, and perform human-like tasks. This overarching goal is what artificial general intelligence seeks to achieve.
What exactly is Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)?
It seeks to be at par with human minds. It aims to do any task that human brains are capable of doing. It tries to achieve more accuracy and reliability. However, AGI systems are expected to do any task that’s assigned to them with increased efficiency but they aren’t developed to do functions that aren’t assigned. On the other hand, human beings, though capable of performing tasks with lesser efficiency and prone to making mistakes, can perform a wider range of functions than any existing AI technology.
AGI is exactly the kind of artificial intelligence that is portrayed in science fiction films in Hollywood. AGI is a machine that has the general intellect and can function and solve problems like humans.
General artificial intelligence is also called deep learning. This aspect of artificial intelligence seeks to develop machines that can mimic human intelligence and work with the same efficiency as that humans. Not just that, tries to equip machines with the ability to think, understand, apply and learn. In short, this branch of study aims to incorporate every human faculty into machines with proper research so that machines can solve problems like humans in any given circumstance.
General artificial intelligence is about programming machines to comprehend human language and process emotions and rationality, two of the prime traits of human beings.
Simpler said than done. Developing machines that can mimic humans is a challenging task. Read more to know how much researchers have achieved their purpose and how much they hope to achieve.
What are the requirements of artificial general intelligence?
There’s no proper definition of artificial general intelligence. However, several traits can help us define what general intelligence would incorporate:
- Past knowledge
- Transfer learning
- Common sense
- Abstraction
- Causality
As is evident, the above traits are directly related to human beings making it clear that the AGI system represents machines as a replica of human beings.
Can AI ever achieve general artificial intelligence?
Achieving an AGI system isn’t possible right now because researchers don’t have complete knowledge of the human brain. It’s vast and works differently for different individuals. Unless scientists study the human brain thoroughly, creating a replica of human beings wouldn’t be possible. However, right now, the primary focus of major technology companies is on upgrading the AI system.
Scientists are positive that soon a breakthrough would be achieved. They are working on creating a hybrid intelligence system, by combining rule-based networks and neural systems.
The question is whether these achievements bring us any closer to the era of remains. Time is the only determiner.
How do experts foresee the future of AGI?
According to AI expert Stuart Russell:
There are innumerable achievements that we have to accomplish before finally creating artificial general intelligence. The process is long and a lot is left. One major accomplishment that’s yet to happen is developing machines with the ability to understand the content of language so that machines can translate between different languages. When humans do machine translation, they understand the language and then act. When machines would be able to understand the human language, we would be one step ahead towards achieving general artificial intelligence.
The transition from AI to AGI has already begun. The process is challenging and time taking. There’s no doubt that artificial general intelligence will dominate the world shortly. It’s just a matter of time.