Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)

Nowadays, the term Artificial Intelligence has become somewhat of a buzzword, and with the release of AI things like ChatGPT and Midjourney, people could witness the potential of Artificial Intelligence, along with the upsides, and the downsides of it.

While many people are still unable to understand this “AI” term, we have another term in talks right now, which is “Artificial General Intelligence”(or AGI as you might have heard it). But what do we mean by the term “Artificial General Intelligence”? This is a big question, and through this article, we will try to answer this question, through some standpoints and examples. I will try to keep it as simple as possible so that anybody can easily digest this term in their minds.

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)

First, please understand that Artificial Intelligence is not something gimmicky, or something new. It has been there for decades, and in a few years, it is already showing its impact and power through different means, like deciding what to show you on Instagram, or YouTube, recommending things to you, and much much more. So, this is something that everyone should take seriously since AI is not for some particular industry, but it is impacting almost every industry.

Above AI, there is one more term that has risen to the discussion now, which is Artificial General Intelligence(AGI), and it seems to be more important now. So, let’s talk about it.

So, what is Artificial Intelligence?

For someone who is not aware of the term “Artificial Intelligence” talking about “Artificial General Intelligence” might be a big bouncer, so first allow me to introduce you to the term “Artificial Intelligence”. Well, if you think you already know about this term, then you can happily skip this part, but it’s probably a 1 minute read here, so maybe please go through this as well.

So, finally, what is Artificial Intelligence? First, let’s consider what is Intelligence. Simply speaking, it’s an ability to acquire skills and knowledge and apply them. We humans gather and apply knowledge and skills regularly, so we are a very intelligent species on this planet. So, now you understand “kind of” what is intelligence.

But now, focus on the word “Artificial” preceding “Intelligence”. It simply means something which is not natural or is Man-made.

So, quite formally, you can understand that “Artificial Intelligence is like making the machines able to do some task, which requires human intelligence, like driving a car, playing chess, and more.”

Well, how AI works, or more things about AI are out of the scope of this article, but if you find AI interesting for you, you may read more about AI here.

What is Artificial General Intelligence(AGI)?

Now let’s turn our heads to probably the most amazing part of this article, and something that we are interested in now, talking about “Artificial General Intelligence”. Now when you probably understand what is Artificial Intelligence, you are probably just a few steps away from understanding what is Artificial General Intelligence.

While it may seem like a gimmicky word to many, it’s actually what many companies like OpenAI have been working on. I mean if you go to the OpenAI about page, you can see the “Artificial General Intelligence” term mentioned there, and it’s been there for years now!

So it should be clear that it’s not something gimmicky, but something on which many people and organizations are putting billions of dollars, and countless amounts of serious time and effort too.

So, finally, what is AGI? See, till now, we have been witnessing AI, which is the best at playing chess, or the game GO, or some AI that is best at predicting movies, or an AI that is best at predicting languages, and much more. But the thing is that the AI which is great at playing Go, would not be able to play some another game, so that AI is good at a particular task.

But with AGI, maybe we move a big step ahead, and AI can probably get the ability to understand and learn about a variety of tasks or domains and apply that knowledge. So, in short, you can understand if the “AGI would be able to perform most of the tasks that a human can perform.”

Fun Fact: A very unclear but good explanation of AGI that I particularly liked is – “We will know when it comes.”. It seems to raise curiosity in the first second, and concerns in the another.

I hope reading the above paragraph doesn’t give you goosebumps(but if it doesn’t give you goosebumps, you probably didn’t get it). I could have directly defined what is AGI, but the reason why I am telling you all this stuff(which might seem boring to many) is that I want you to understand the depth of this topic. I want that after reading this article, AGI should be there somewhere on your mind.

As of today, AGI is fictional, visionary, or something Sci-fi, but people and organizations are working towards it, and we may witness AGI on any random day may be.

If you are thinking that AI has been impacting the IT industry, and we have been seeing the impact so far happening on the IT industry, you need to understand that AI has applications in other industries as well, so if you are thinking that you are in some “AI Proof” industry, maybe you need to rethink.

AI vs AGI – What’s the difference?

Well, now that you have (probably) understood what is Artificial Intelligence and Artificial General Intelligence, let’s have a look at some of the points of differences between AI and AGI.

Artificial Intelligence	Artificial General Intelligence
AI is enabling machines to perform tasks that require human intelligence	AGI refers to giving AI the ability to learn, understand, and apply intelligence to any task that a human being can.
AI is mostly task-focused	AGI may refer to human-like abilities
AI lacks versatility in tasks	AGI may adapt to various situations
AI operates within some set parameters	AGI may develop self-sufficient decision-making
AI refers to limited learning	AGI may show adaptivity, learning new things
AI’s decisions are based on predefined rules	AGI may make decisions based on context and understanding
AI’s learning is typically from structured data	AGI learns from diverse experiences, similar to human learning

As you can see, the above table shows some simple, but really important and impactful differences between AI and AGI. I hope that things might be much clearer now. Surely there are many things to talk about the differences because with AGI, we are directly taking a step towards enabling machines to be able to perform almost any tasks that humans can perform (that’s a big deal).

I don’t want to scare you at any point in this article, but I surely want to make you aware of this thing. Instead of being scared or disturbed after reading this, I want you to explore more about this, and about how you can use this to your advantage in your life or business.

Why is AI important?

Well, if you ask this question to me, I would rather say that this question is already outdated. For someone who doesn’t know, the term AI has been there for decades, and many people and companies have been working on AI, from different standpoints.

For example, there’s a lot of content on YouTube, but what you would like to watch is pretty much decided by AI, so you stay for more on the platform.

Or similar to this, you sometimes spend endless hours scrolling through your Instagram feed(it’s because AI could engage you by showing you what you like).

As yet another example, Netflix can recommend some movies that you might like to watch, so we never need to spend our brains thinking about what should we watch next, because AI probably knows what we might like.(You might have observed this. If not, please observe next time you use social media, or movie/music streaming platforms)

So, AI has been there for decades, and for many years, it has been shaping our lives in many different ways. In somewhat recent times, we also have seen significant advancements, allowing AI to write us Paragraphs, poems, letters, and much more(I am talking about ChatGPT), or create jaw-dropping Artworks(consider DALL-E 3 or Midjourney, or Stable Diffusion), but I want you to think of it as like a beginning of something very different, maybe the greatest thing ever.

So, if you have been here reading the entire stuff that I have written, I assume that you are now understanding, and will take it seriously(at least you won’t take it lightly now)

(Possible) Impact of AGI

While AGI does not exist practically, it can be still possible to paint a road from today(where we are) to when AGI comes, so let’s discuss the possible impact of AGI. Please note that this is a POSSIBLE impact, so things may be more or less than what is stated here, but what’s wrong with projection, so that we can make our minds think and act accordingly from today?

Impact of AGI on Finance

AGI’s adaptability and problem-solving skills can be great for the Finance Industry and may help a lot in investment strategies, fraud detection, and more. When AGI can learn from and understand massive amounts of financial data, it might lead to more informed decision-making, predicting things related to finance, and it may come up with some new financial models, which might reshape the investment and banking areas.

Impact of AGI on Healthcare

Well, honestly speaking, AGI can have the potential to revolutionize the Healthcare industry, maybe like never before. AGI may have much more knowledge, and information than probably the smartest doctor, and it would be capable of learning new things much more quickly, so this might lead to more accurate diagnosis and personalized treatments, and may lead to discoveries of new, better, and unexplored treatment options.

In short, AGI may bring revolution to Healthcare through extensive research. There’s a lot that can happen in the Healthcare sector.

Impact of AGI on Education

AGI could help personalize education for students, like never before. With the human-like capabilities that the AGI may have, it might adapt teaching methods according to the student’s needs and preferences, tailoring the content, and explanation so that the student can understand the best of it.

So, AGI may entirely transform the traditional education system, providing a more interactive, engaging, and very customized experience to the student.

Impact of AGI on Manufacturing Industries

Well, AGI can significantly impact Manufacturing, due to its adaptability in various situations. It can help in optimizing the production lines, may predict any maintenance before it happens, and may even help discover new methods to increase and improve the manufacture of things, that might have been left unexplored by humans.

So, through AGI, manufacturing can be transformed in a way that would lead to a highly efficient and adaptable manufacturing system.

Impact of AGI on Transportation

While you might already have heard about self-driving cars and trucks, AGI may take it to the next level, through its adaptive human-like decision-making capabilities. It may improve route planning by observing traffic and navigating autonomous vehicles smoothly and efficiently through optimal paths toward the destination.

Also, AGI might help us explore and develop cheaper, more efficient, and safer transport systems.

Should we be worried about AGI?

Well, this is a pretty much valid question, because AGI is probably something that could be able to perform almost any task that a human being can do, leaving many humans questioning what should they do now.

At this point honestly, the picture is blurry enough to make countless predictions, which might go wrong. But what is certain is that many people and organizations are working towards AGI, and we might witness it any random day, maybe sooner or later.

Many people might be in ignorant mode, or even against AI, mistakenly thinking that AI can’t do anything because they are not familiar with what AI can do till now.

Many people are using AI (like ChatGPT) consciously in many of their tasks, but they are not ready to admit its potential future.

But instead of just being worried, and overthinking about it, I want you to get your mind thinking and working towards what you can do to benefit from this, for your life and business. We just have seen above, some POSSIBLE impacts of AGI, in some industries. Through this, you can try visualizing a drawing from point A(where we are standing) to point B(where we are heading towards). Try to visualize and brainstorm about this, because this is something very serious.

How far is AGI?

You might have heard that AGI does not exist right now, but then the question arises how far are we from Artificial General Intelligence? Well, this question has somewhat mixed opinions, like some people say that – “we are closer to AGI, and in a few years, we should be able to achieve AGI”, while some people think that we are not even closer to that.

For example, Ray Kurzweil, American Computer Scientist, and a futurist, has predicted that by 2029, AI will reach the human level of intelligence. Well, this is a big statement by a big man in the field. Many people are talking about AGI, and many people and organizations are working towards AGI, but today, still it feels very uncertain. Maybe when you are reading through this article, efforts are going on to build many futuristic technologies, that we might not even think of. The world is moving too fast! We may witness AGI on any random day, and we need to be prepared for that.

Conclusion

Well, this article was about making you aware of what Artificial Intelligence is, and I tried my best to do that. AI, or AGI, whatever it is, is not just for someone in particular, but important for all of us. Whether you are a student still learning, an IT professional going through his/her career, an accountant, a graphics designer, a Doctor, a pharmacist, a factory worker, a driver, a content writer, a blogger, or a retired person, you should be familiar with this all.

I hope you understand what AGI is, and I hope now you won’t take this thing lightly, and work towards it.

FAQs on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)