Only 16 months have passed, but the release of ChatGPT back in November 2022 feels already like ancient AI history. Hundreds of billions of dollars, both public and private, are pouring into AI. Thousands of AI-powered products have been created, including the new GPT-4o just this week. Everyone from students to scientists now use these large language models. Our world, and in particular the world of AI, has decidedly changed.
But the real prize of human-level AI—or artificial general intelligence (AGI)—has yet to be achieved. Such a breakthrough would mean an AI that can carry out most economically productive work, engage with others, do science, build and maintain social networks, conduct politics, and carry out modern warfare. The main constraint for all these tasks today is cognition. Removing this constraint would be world-changing. Yet many across the globe’s leading AI labs believe this technology could be a reality…
