Are We Really on the Path to AGI? by Yuval Levin at The New Atlantis

The notion that we are moving in the direction of artificial general intelligence looks more like an article of faith than the conclusion of any argument or the implication of any set of observations. It was an assumption present at the birth of modern artificial intelligence, planted there by a variety of brilliant theorists and science fiction writers. Its profound influence on the culture of Silicon Valley has meant that it has played an important role in the conceptual evolution of the field. But it is not obviously justified by the evolution of the technology itself in recent years, and seems at odds with the general direction of that evolution.

The best piece I’ve read on AI in a while, probably because it confirms an inchoate suspicion that has been nagging at me. AI has been impressive in fields where progress is easily verifiable (like coding and math), and recursive self-improvement looks more tractable there. For ‘softer’ or more tacit kinds of knowledge, there’s less reason to expect the same kind of progress, unless someone finds a way to verify it. So why is the AI story presented as (and research seemingly geared toward) reaching general intelligence?

If we remain skeptical of how AI will evolve (maybe it’s AGI, maybe it’s more domain-specific intelligences), then many of the threat models and utopian hopes often ascribed to AI abstractly would need rethinking.

From what I gather, China doesn’t seem to conceive of AI competition as a race to AGI. Their approach seems much more practical and immediate, and thus better suited to domain-specific AI. Maybe the U.S. is playing the wrong game, and maybe for largely faith-based reasons. OCT 9 | REPLY