I don't think AGI is right around the corner

Anyone who claims that a poorly definined concept, AGI, is right around the corner is most likely:

- trying to sell something

- high on their own stories

- high on exogenous compounds

- all of the above

LLMs are good at language. They are OK summarizers of text by design but not good at logic. Very poor at spatial reasoning and as a result poor at connecting concepts together.

Just ask any of the crown jewel LLM models "What's the biggest unsolved problem in the [insert any] field".

The usual result is a pop-science-level article but with ton of subtle yet critical mistakes! Even worse, the answer sounds profound on the surface. In reality, it's just crap.

LLM are a compressed version of their training dataset with a text based interactive search function.

LLMs are useful in that respect. As are media diffusion models. They've compressed the physics of light, the rules of composition, the structure of prose, the knowledge of the internet, etc. and made it infinitely remixable and accessible to laypersons.

AGI, on the other hand, should really stand for Aspirationally Grifting Investors.

Superintelligence is not around the corner. OpenAI knows this and is trying to become a hyperscaler / Mag7 company with the foothold they've established and the capital that they've raised. Despite that, they need a tremendous amount of additional capital to will themselves into becoming the next new Google. The best way to do that is to sell the idea of superintelligence.

AGI is a grift. We don't even have a definition for it.