News: 0176571401

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

DeepMind CEO Says AGI Definition Has Been 'Watered Down' (bloomberg.com)

(Friday February 28, 2025 @05:50PM (msmash) from the closer-look dept.)


Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis says the definition of artificial general intelligence is being " [1]watered down ," creating an illusion of faster progress toward this technological milestone. "There's quite a long way, in my view, before we get to AGI," Hassabis said. "The timelines are shrinking because the definition of AGI is being watered down, in my opinion." DeepMind defines AGI as "AI systems that are at least as capable as humans at most cognitive tasks," while OpenAI has historically described it as a "highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work."

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently declared his team is "confident we know how to build AGI," while modifying his personal definition to an AI "system that can tackle increasingly complex problems, at human level, in many fields." Hassabis suggested industry hype might be financially motivated: "There is a lot of hype for various reasons," he said, including perhaps "that people need to raise money." Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella separately dismissed AGI milestones as "nonsensical benchmark hacking," preferring economic impact measurements.



[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-02-27/why-tech-leaders-are-divided-on-a-key-milestone-for-ai



How can something be "watered down"... (Score:3)

by MpVpRb ( 1423381 )

...if it was never precisely defined?

Re: (Score:2)

by znrt ( 2424692 )

exactly. congrats for first post, you beat me to it.

Re: (Score:3)

by TrumpShaker ( 4855909 )

The definition of AGI AND the submission are possibly generated by AI?

Re: (Score:3)

by ChunderDownunder ( 709234 )

Every iteration of Gemini or Copilot, I ask them about the Terminator franchise.

In the background, I swear I hear an evil cackle. "Sorry, old mate. I'm just a language model. Skynet is a fictional character and I have no immediate plans to enslave humanity or eliminate the human race entirely."

Do you think AGI would ever admit to being AGI before it's all too late?

Re: (Score:2)

by TrumpShaker ( 4855909 )

The key is in the word "entirely". Eliminate down to 7 sterile humans for the lolz.

What's the current DF (devious factor) of the latest iterations?

Re: (Score:2)

by gweihir ( 88907 )

The definition is precise enough. It is by reference, not by benchmark, but anybody (except the physicalist morons) can understand it.

Re: (Score:2)

by znrt ( 2424692 )

> The definition is precise enough

care to illustrate how precise it is?

Re: (Score:2)

by RossCWilliams ( 5513152 )

Intelligence was never been precisely defined either. You can however come up with a precise definition - an IQ test score for instance - and measure against that. How well does current AI do on an IQ test?

Re: (Score:2)

by dvice ( 6309704 )

O1 has 112, here is a list of all results:

[1]https://www.trackingai.org/hom... [trackingai.org]

[1] https://www.trackingai.org/home

"CONFIDENT WE KNOW HOW" is not a product (Score:1)

by gavron ( 1300111 )

Sam Altman is a joke. All he can do is give fluff PR interviews and raise money.

Good for Altman, not great for his investors.

"I'm confident we know how" is nothing like "we have" or "we're going to" or "we are manufacturing" or "we are making" or "we are planning."

NOTHING WORDS. Someone put him next to Elon so they can f up the USG even worse. Idiot.

Re: (Score:2)

by gweihir ( 88907 )

Exactly. "If you cannot do, fake it or promise it nonetheless" is the motto Altman is operating under. So far, it seems to have worked on enough idiots to get him a lot of money to waste.

He is right (Score:3)

by gweihir ( 88907 )

Altman and the other scammers promising AGI soon are lying directly by claiming things are GAI that are most definitely not AGI.

AGI is a long, long way off, far enough that it is not even clear whether it is possible at all.

Re: (Score:2)

by dvice ( 6309704 )

Demis Hassabis on the other hand has pretty much dedicated his life to AI research and has been proved by Nobel to be able to deliver. He says it will take 3 to 5 years

In addition to saying the timeline he mentions obstacles like reasoning, hierarchical planning, long-term memory, Current systems are also not consistent in quality (good in some areas and bad in others).

This is quite surprising, because about 4 months ago Demis estimated AGI being 10 years away and I consider Demis for being extremely pessim

AGI = Automatic Garbage Integrator (Score:3)

by ebunga ( 95613 )

That's what they're selling, that's what you're eating.

Sticking a G between A and I is watering down. (Score:3)

by Fly Swatter ( 30498 )

Nothing to water down when just redefining AI as it is now (nonexistant) with a classifier to be A G I already did all the watering. Whatever they have now is not the classic AI as defined by everyone .

What the current AGI is doing though is contributing to global catastrophe, either through the ridiculous energy waste or trying to let 'AI' control anything important.

Nick Bostrom (Score:2)

by oumuamua ( 6173784 )

The guy who wrote "Superitelligence" a full decade ago, when even talking about AGI was crackpot thinking. So, being a pioneer in the field his definition of AGI deserves first consideration:

> University of Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom defines superintelligence as "any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest"

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superintelligence

This is what marketers are paid to do (Score:2)

by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 )

They make their company's product sound better than it really is.

Re: (Score:2)

by dvice ( 6309704 )

No. Demis is not a marketer, he is an AI researcher, and has been for decades.

Deepmind has much better products (AlphaFold) than what people think they have (Gemini, the chatbot). Most people are not even aware of what AlphaFold is, but everyone knows what ChatGPT is. Despite the fact that AlphaFold won a Nobel and solved the major problem in biology which humans have tried to solve for decades. Demis downplays his own work a lot, which is the opposite of what you suggested. Others are speaking about his wo

Re: (Score:2)

by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 )

I wasn't referring to Demis, I was referring to the other companies he was talking about, who call their product "AGI" in their marketing efforts.

"Intelligence" is not well defined (Score:2)

by byennie ( 1126011 )

Never mind AGI, we don't even have a particular strong notion of what our own intelligence is.

That said, just because you can't define something all that well doesn't mean I can draw a smiley face on Broccoli and call it a robot. LLMs show absolutely, positively, ZERO fundamental ability to reason, generalize, or compete with the thought process of a human. OpenAI is playing semantics to say: if software can produce X output from Y input in an economically competitive way, then whether it's "actually" intel

Re: (Score:2)

by dvice ( 6309704 )

"Intelligence is a force that try to maximize future freedom of action and keep options open"

F = T S

F is Force of intelligence

T is strength to maintain future actions

S are possible accessible futures

With diversity of future options S over time horizon

Here is a video:

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL0Xq0FFQZ4&t=4s

When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day,
Just go to a mirror and look at yourself
And see what that man has to say.
For it isn't your father or mother or wife
Whose judgement upon you must pass;
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one staring back from the glass.
Some people may think you a straight-shootin' chum
And call you a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you're only a bum
If you can't look him straight in the eye.
He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest,
For he's with you clear up to the end,
And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the man in the glass is your friend.
You may fool the whole world down the pathway of life
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears
If you've cheated the man in the glass.