Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

This is an important result.

The actual paper [1] says that functional MRI (which is measuring which parts of the brain are active by sensing blood flow) indicates that different brain hardware is used for non-language and language functions. This has been suspected for years, but now there's an experimental result.

What this tells us for AI is that we need something else besides LLMs. It's not clear what that something else is. But, as the paper mentions, the low-end mammals and the corvids lack language but have some substantial problem-solving capability. That's seen down at squirrel and crow size, where the brains are tiny. So if someone figures out to do this, it will probably take less hardware than an LLM.

This is the next big piece we need for AI. No idea how to do this, but it's the right question to work on.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07522-w.epdf?shar...

You highlight an expectation that the “truer intelligence” is a singular device, once isolated would mobilize ultimate AGI.

All intelligence is the mitigation of uncertainty (the potential distributed problem.) if it does not mitigate uncertainty it is not intelligence, it is something else.

Intelligence is a technology. For all life intelligence and the infrastructure of performing work efficiently (that whole entropy thing again) is a technology. Life is an arms race to maintain continuity (identity, and the very capacity of existential being.)

The modern problem is achieving reliable behavioral intelligence (constrained to a specific problem domain.) AGI is a phantasm. What manifestation of intelligence appears whole and complete and is always right? These are the sorts of lies you tell yourself, the ones that get you into trouble. They distract from tangible real world problems, perhaps causing some of them. True intelligence is a well calibrated “scalar” domain specific problem (uncertainty) reducer. There are few pressing idempotent obstructions in the real world.

Intelligence is the mitigation of uncertainty.

Uncertainty is the domain of negative potential (what,where,why,how?)

Mitigation is the determinant resolve of any constructive or destructive interference affecting (terminal resolve within) the problem domain.

Examples of this may be piled together mountains high, and you may call that functional AGI, though you would be self deceiving. At some point “good enough” may be declared for anything so passing as yourselves.