Artificial General Intelligence

Humans are simultaneously fascinated and abhorred by the prospect of building human-level intelligence into a non-human creation or innovation. Books, movies, research papers, inventions, and countless hours have been dedicated to creating human-like intelligence. There truly seems to be equal measures of wonder and terror in the idea.

In almost every high school class I have spoken with and to over the past 10 years, this topic is raised. Typically, a student raises the subject and a lively and wide-ranging discussion ensues. The conversation has evolved over that time period, but where we have landed over the past couple years is that the students want to know when AGI can be used to improve live battlefield operations (that is, killer drones), as well as first person shooter games, and another group of students want to know when AGI will be able to lessen the harmful effects of global warming and the problems related to food distribution, leading...