I don't think AGI is right around the corner

I've been confused with the AI discourse for a few years, because it seems to make assertions with strong philosophical implications for the relatively recent (Western) philosophical conversation around personal identity and consciousness.

I no longer think that this is really about what we immediately observe as our individual intellectual existence, and I don't want to criticize whatever it is these folks are talking about.

But FWIW, and in that vein, if we're really talking about artificial intelligence, i.e. "creative" and "spontaneous" thought, that we all as introspective thinkers can immediately observe, here are references I take seriously (Bernard Williams and John Searle from the 20th century):

https://archive.org/details/problemsofselfph0000will/page/n7...

https://archive.org/details/intentionalityes0000sear

Descartes, Hume, Kant and Wittgenstein are older sources that are relevant.

[edit] Clarified that Williams and Searle are 20th century.

Intelligence and consciousness are two different things though, and some would argue they may even be almost completely orthogonal. (A great science fiction book called Blindsight by Peter Watts explores this concept in some detail BTW, it’s a great read.)

I think what some ancient philosopher said becomes less interesting when the things are working. Instead of what is thought we move onto why didn't the code ChatGPT produced compile and is Claude better.