The Roadblocks to Achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI): Why we need more than just faster computers

Deepu S Nath
4 min readFeb 21, 2023

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Open AI (GPT-3) has been a sensation for a while now and what the world anticipates now is the AGI (Artificial General Intelligence).

While AI has made great progress in recent years, experts believe achieving AGI is still a long way off since most AI systems are trained for specific tasks and struggle to adapt to new situations.

To achieve AGI, AI must be able to apply knowledge across a range of domains and process a humongous amount of data along with the computational technology to process, which is yet to be discovered at present.

What the world is currently jubilating is an infant version of what is about to come and let’s have a look into what we have and what are the roadblocks towards achieving the AGI.

Narrow AI vs. AGI

Most AI systems today are designed to perform specific tasks, such as recognizing images or processing natural language. These models are not designed to be flexible or adaptable in the way that a human brain is and it is known as narrow AI, which is the primary type of AI that we currently have.

AI systems should be able to learn and generalize across different domains to achieve the desired form of AGI. Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) refers to a theoretical form of intelligence that can understand or learn or perform any intellectual task exactly as human beings do. It is a primary goal of some AI research.

Need Breakthrough research in Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, and Computer Vision

Achieving AGI will require significant breakthroughs in a variety of research areas, including machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision.

We need to develop new algorithms, techniques, and architectures that can enable AGI to learn, reason, and adapt in a way that is similar to human intelligence.

Need Understanding how human cognition and thinking works

Through decades of research in fields such as neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science, we have gained a significant understanding of many aspects of the brain’s structure and function, including the roles of different regions and the mechanisms underlying various cognitive processes.

This includes not only the way that our brains process information, but also the way that we perceive the world and make decisions. While there has been progressing in neuroscience and cognitive psychology, we are still far from a complete understanding of these complex processes.

A cross-collaboration with experts in other fields such as biology, psychology, and philosophy is required to gain a more comprehensive understanding of human cognition so that it can make a revolutionary understanding of how machines can be made to learn new things and identify its saturations on different thought processing aspects.

Need for higher computing and other resources

To achieve Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), we will need access to higher computing resources than what is currently available with the existing computing architectures.

This means not only more processing power, but also more data storage and management, optimized computing architecture, and increased energy efficiency.

Developing and implementing such resources will be a highly resource-intensive process that could have a significant impact on the environment.

Need for addressing Legal and Ethical Concerns

As AI systems become more intelligent, they may also become more autonomous and less controllable which eventually raises a number of ethical concerns, and proper governance structure such as who is responsible if an AGI system causes harm, and how we can ensure that these systems are used for the benefit of humanity.

Image source: [Legal and Ethical Consideration in Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare: Who Takes Responsibility?], by [Nithesh Naik], originally published in Frontiers in Surgery

Before AGI can be practically deployed, it’s crucial to address these concerns. Developing AGI in a responsible manner, with the right checks and balances, is very much essential to ensure that it benefits humanity in the desired form.

The Long Road Ahead

In the next couple of decades, we would surely see the realization of AGI, and eventually, ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence) which has the potential to transform our world in ways we can’t yet imagine.

Ref: lawtomated

And to achieve the same, constant and cross-collaborative effort from researchers using the right technology in related fields is required and it is indeed possible since the future is what we dream of.

Still, in the coming few years we would surely see wider adoption of Artificial Intelligence in all business tools including the web and mobile applications we see today. It is one of the biggest opportunities for anyone who is willing to build the skillset and mindset to work on such technologies.

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Deepu S Nath

Entrepreneur | Gamification Researcher | Startup Mentor | Community Builder | TiE Kerala Ecosystem Enabler | TedX Speaker