With the release of ChatGPT last year, a renewed focus was placed on AGI – artificial general intelligence – the advanced technology with similar capabilities to that of humans.
And while some argue GPT-4, the latest version of the technology, appears close to AGI, others say it is years, or decades, before the technology reaches human-like abilities.
There is no one agreed upon definition of AGI, but a 2020 report from consulting giant McKinsey said a true AGI would need to master skills like sensory perception, fine motor skills, and natural language understanding.
Dr. Michael Capps, the co-founder and CEO of Diveplane, said AGI is "an AI that can do anything, and maybe as well or better than a human"
"What’s really neat about that is now we can deploy them in all different facets of life, and hopefully do all the boring stuff," he said.
A technology that advanced, though, gives some pause, Capps warned.
"The downside is AGIs can learn quickly… suddenly you have something that’s way smarter than a 3-year-old, or an 18-year-old, or Einstein… That’s where people start getting a little nervous about, how do we even understand what that may be?," he added.
Christopher Alexander, the chief communications officer of Liberty Blockchain, told Fox News Digital in his view, AGI would be an "operator," allowing him to have a conversation with it like he would with an analyst.
But, Alexander argued, the current AI models, such as GPT-4, are nowhere near a true AGI.
"It is nowhere, nowhere near that, and I think it’s important to recognize that," he said.
"So when? I think supercomputing power is probably going to be a major factor," Alexander added.
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Capps also emphasized that current AI models do not reach the level of AGI, and that there is no set time for when the technology will reach human-like abilities.
"I think the neat thing is, no one knows," he said. "The average AI scientist probably thinks we’re 20, 15 years away. But once it happens, it’s going to be really fast."
Others, however, view the recent developments in generative AI, such as GPT-4, as advancements in the direction of AGI.
An April report from Microsoft Research said GPT4, the latest version of ChatGPT, exhibited "more general intelligence than previous AI models."
"Given the breadth and depth of GPT-4's capabilities, we believe that it could reasonably be viewed as an early (yet still incomplete) version of an artificial general intelligence (AGI) system," a summary of the report read.
ChatGPT was released last year, and allows users to have conversations with an AI chatbot, with the ability to write text, songs, poems and even computer code. Microsoft has integrated the technology in its Bing search engine.
