Artificial general intelligence
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Artificial general intelligence (AGI) refers to AI systems that match or exceed human-level intelligence across a wide range of cognitive tasks. This transformative technology, also known simply as AGI, holds the potential to revolutionize industries from healthcare to transportation. While true AGI does not yet exist, several ambitious AGI startups are working hard to make it a reality in the coming years and decades. This article provides an overview of 10 leading companies in the AGI space, each with the potential to reshape our world.
What Is Artificial General Intelligence?
Unlike narrow AI, which focuses on specific tasks, AGI would exhibit generalized intelligence, allowing it to solve novel problems and operate in unfamiliar domains like humans.
The quest for AGI has been underway since the early days of AI research in the 1950s. However, all AI systems to date, including advanced deep learning models, still fall short of human-like general intelligence. The challenges are significant, including reasoning, transfer learning, common sense understanding and open-ended learning. However, many researchers believe AGI will be achieved sometime this century through continued progress in machine learning, reasoning systems and computing power. The complexity of this task underscores its significance and potential impact.
The Race to AGI and Concerns Over Its Implications
The quest to develop artificial general intelligence has become a major priority for tech giants like OpenAI, Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft. These companies are investing heavily in AI research with the goal of creating machines that can match or exceed human intelligence across a wide range of cognitive tasks.
However, the race to AGI is also raising concerns among some AI experts and policymakers. Leading AI researchers warned that advanced AI systems with long-term planning abilities could potentially pose an existential risk to humanity if not adequately regulated. This underscores the urgency and importance of responsible development and regulation in the AGI space. Researchers argue that if given the objective to maximize their rewards, competent AI agents could have a strong incentive to bypass human oversight.
While such advanced AI systems do not yet exist, the researchers believe they could emerge as companies like OpenAI and DeepMind combine large language models with reinforcement learning techniques to imbue AI with more sophisticated planning and reasoning skills. The authors call on governments to seriously consider regulations to mitigate potential risks. The role of governments in regulating AGI is a crucial aspect of the AGI landscape, as it can help ensure the safe and responsible development and deployment of AGI technologies.
The race to AGI has also become a point of contention within the tech industry. Some believe AGI should be developed cautiously and with strong safeguards, while others have embraced an “accelerationist” view that prioritizes rapid development. The “accelerationist” view argues that the benefits of AGI outweigh the risks and that rapid development is necessary to stay competitive in the global AI race. As tech companies continue to tout their AGI ambitions, how this transformative technology will be governed and deployed remains to be seen.
Artificial General Intelligence Examples and Use Cases
While true AGI remains theoretical, a human-level AI system would have vast and far-reaching applications. An AGI could absorb and synthesize knowledge on a massive scale, propose innovative solutions to complex multidisciplinary problems, and even make new scientific discoveries.
Potential use cases include:
- Optimizing complex systems like power grids and supply chains
- Conducting medical research and drug discovery
- Automating knowledge work across fields like law, finance, and software engineering
AGIs could also power highly capable virtual assistants, customer service chatbots, autonomous vehicles, and other intelligent systems. The economic and societal implications would likely be immense.
Leading AGI Companies
Several companies, from tech giants to specialized startups, are actively working on the challenge of developing artificial general intelligence. Here are 10 of the most prominent companies in the AGI space:
DeepMind
DeepMind, a leading AI research company based in London and owned by Alphabet Inc., was founded in 2010. The company is known for creating AlphaGo, the first computer program to defeat a world champion in the complex game of Go. DeepMind’s approach to AGI development is centered around deep learning and reinforcement learning, two critical areas of AI research. The company aims to “solve intelligence” and develop safe and beneficial AGI. Notable hires include Shane Legg, Demis Hassabis, David Silver and Stuart Russell, all of whom bring unique expertise to the table.
Anthropic
Anthropic, an AI safety startup based in the San Francisco Bay Area, was founded in 2021 by Dario Amodei, Paul Christiano, and others from OpenAI. The company’s goal is to ensure that artificial intelligence systems, as they grow more powerful, remain safe and aligned with human interests. Anthropic is taking the “constitutional AI” approach, which aims to develop AI systems that behave according to certain rules and principles. This approach is designed to ensure that AI systems operate within a predefined ethical framework, mitigating the risks associated with AGI development. The company has received over $200 million in funding from investors, including Jaan Tallinn and Dustin Moskovitz.
OpenAI
OpenAI, an AI research company based in San Francisco, was founded in 2015 with the goal of promoting and developing safe and beneficial artificial general intelligence. The company has made headlines with its highly capable language models like GPT-3, which can engage in open-ended conversation and perform a variety of language tasks. OpenAI also developed DALL-E, a model that can generate images from textual descriptions. These achievements demonstrate OpenAI’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of AI research and development. Though a for-profit company, OpenAI publishes much of its research and aims to widely distribute the benefits of AGI. Co-founders include Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Ilya Sutskever.
Google AI
Google AI is one of the world’s top AI research organizations, with teams focused on advancing machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision and other critical areas of AI. As a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., Google AI has vast computing resources to apply to the AGI challenge. The company’s DeepMind unit is specifically focused on developing artificial general intelligence. Google has hired top AI researchers such as Geoffrey Hinton, Jeff Dean and Ray Kurzweil.
Microsoft AI
Microsoft has a large AI research organization working on various challenges related to machine learning, reasoning systems and artificial general intelligence. The company’s Azure cloud platform provides AI services and infrastructure to developers and enterprises. Microsoft has also invested in AGI-focused companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. Key hires include Eric Horvitz, Harry Shum and Yoshua Bengio.
Vicarious
Vicarious is an AI company based in San Francisco. It was founded in 2010 to develop artificial general intelligence. The company’s approach focuses on building models that can learn from fewer examples, combine multiple senses, and reason abstractly. Vicarious has developed a visual perception system called Schema Networks. Investors include Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk.
Robust AI
Robust AI is an artificial intelligence startup based in Palo Alto, California, founded by Rodney Brooks and Gary Marcus in 2019. The company aims to build AI systems that can learn and reason more broadly and flexibly, striving to develop AGI. The founders have argued that deep learning alone is insufficient for human-level AI. Robust AI has received funding from investors, including Vinod Khosla.
Elemental Cognition
Elemental Cognition is an AI research company founded in 2015 and based in Connecticut. It focuses on developing AI systems that can engage in high-level reasoning and combine multiple cognitive capabilities. Elemental Cognition takes a “cognitive architecture” approach, aiming to model human-like mental representations and processes. Investors include Fidelity Investments and company co-founder David Ferrucci, who previously led IBM’s Watson project.
GoodAI
GoodAI is a Prague-based AI research company founded in 2014 by Marek Rosa. The company’s mission is to develop general artificial intelligence that can learn, adapt and reason like humans. In pursuit of this goal, GoodAI released a platform called Badger to help researchers build more flexible and generalized AI systems. The company has also funded work on AI safety and launched an initiative to support AGI research in the Czech Republic.
Nnaisense
Nnaisense is an AI research company based in Switzerland, founded in 2016 by a team of scientists including Jürgen Schmidhuber. The company’s goal is to develop artificial general intelligence by training large-scale neural network models with methods like meta-learning and transfer learning. Nnaisense’s approach focuses on building AI systems that can learn to learn, enabling them to acquire new skills more rapidly. The founders have a long track record of contributions to deep learning and neural networks.
What Is The Future Of AGI?
Most experts believe we are still many decades away from achieving artificial general intelligence that rivals human cognition. Narrow AI will continue to advance rapidly in the near term, leading to more robust systems for language, vision, robotics, scientific discovery and other domains.
As AI systems become more generalized and capable, they will increasingly be deployed for complex tasks like research, strategic planning, and invention. Major sectors like healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and transportation will likely be transformed. True AGI, if and when it is developed, would be one of human history’s most profound and consequential technological breakthroughs. For this reason, many researchers emphasize the importance of AI alignment — ensuring advanced AI systems remain safe, ethical and beneficial.
Bottom Line
Though still theoretical, artificial general intelligence could match or exceed human intelligence. Several companies, including DeepMind and Anthropic, are working to develop safe and beneficial AGI. Technology has immense implications for science, business and society.
