When is an AI system intelligent enough to be called artificial general intelligence (AGI)? According to one definition reportedly agreed upon by Microsoft and OpenAI, the answer lies in economics: When AI generates $100 billion in profits. This arbitrary profit-based benchmark for AGI perfectly captures the definitional chaos plaguing the AI industry.
In fact, it may be impossible to create a universal definition of AGI, but few people with money on the line will admit it.
Over this past year, several high-profile people in the tech industry have been heralding the seemingly imminent arrival of “AGI” (i.e., within the next two years). But there’s a huge problem: Few people agree on exactly what AGI means. As Google DeepMind wrote in a paper on the topic: If you ask 100 AI experts to define AGI, you’ll get “100 related but different definitions.”
