What is AGI, the artificial intelligence that scares scientists and causes chaos inside OpenAI?

Many sources believe that the fact that OpenAI researchers are getting closer to being able to create AGI is the reason why CEO Sam Altman was suddenly fired.

OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT, had a turbulent weekend when the company's board of directors suddenly fired CEO Sam Altman, leading to a series of internal changes within the company as the interim CEO position was continuously replaced, and employees simultaneously signed an open letter demanding that the Board of Directors resign to bring Sam Altman back to the CEO position or else they would quit.

Currently, the internal situation of OpenAI has somewhat stabilized when Sam Altman has returned to the position of CEO, the old Board of Directors has resigned to form a new Board of Directors. However, the question of why the Board of Directors suddenly fired CEO Sam Altman has not been satisfactorily answered.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at the center of this weekend's turmoil at the company that created ChatGPT

Reuters sources said that before deciding to fire Sam Altman, the OpenAI Board of Directors received a warning about a breakthrough in the creation of super-intelligent artificial intelligence that could endanger humanity. And due to concerns about CEO Sam Altman's reckless behavior, the OpenAI Board of Directors made a hasty decision to fire him. Many people believe that this breakthrough is that OpenAI researchers have created an AGI (artificial general intelligence).

Not only OpenAI researchers, many other scholars around the world also expressed their concerns about the ability to create AGI from artificial intelligence research activities of companies around the world.

AGI - artificial intelligence that can think like humans

So what is AGI, how is it different from chatbots like ChatGPT, Bard, Bing Chat, . that are being developed by technology companies around the world and brought to users today. And why are researchers so afraid of it?

AGI does not specialize in any particular field like most AI systems today.

Although there is no exact definition, many experts say: " AGI is a system that is highly automated and can perform work of economic value better than humans" .  AGI does not specialize in a specific field like most current AI systems. It has the ability to adapt and generalize across a range of tasks, as well as being able to achieve typical human skills: consciousness and intuition. According to OpenAI, AGI is considered a super intelligent artificial intelligence that is beneficial to humanity.

AGIs are very different from the chatbots that are commonly used by users today. Basically, chatbots like ChatGPT, Bing Chat or Bard are applications that operate on large language models (LLMs). While AGI is a type of AI that can theoretically perform intellectual tasks and have consciousness and intuition like humans, chatbots and LLMs today are just types of AI that are trained on huge amounts of data to give answers based on the models it learns from the data.

Experts in the field of AI are skeptical about achieving AGI in the near future due to the complexity and challenges involved. This skepticism stems from a lack of understanding of human-level intelligence and the difficulty of replicating it in machines. Although the concept of AGI has been widely known through science fiction, the reality is still far from the described possibilities.

Why Many Scholars Fear AGI

The ability to continuously learn makes AGI smarter than humans.

Although still theoretical, the potential of AGI has raised concerns among experts and scholars in the field. As a fully autonomous system – perhaps even self-aware – AGI could outperform humans in most economically valuable tasks.

Furthermore, the ability to continuously learn without getting tired could make AGI technology smarter than humans, which has experts worried about the potential risks of this technology if we eventually cannot control it.

Even without superior human intelligence, AGI could have significant impacts on the labor market, replacing humans in many fields. There are also ethical concerns about developing AGI.

Furthermore, experts are concerned that AGI indirectly threatens humanity in other ways. Combined with other technological advances, human misuse of AGI technology could pose other threats to humanity itself.

AGI could also have significant implications for the labor market.

These concerns have prompted many AI researchers and experts in the field to call on technology corporations to restrain the development of this advanced artificial intelligence technology. However, the race to develop AI among technology companies, and even among countries, is overshadowing this call.

Could this be the reason for the snap decision to fire OpenAI CEO Sam Altman? For now, that's all speculation. But if it was related to a technology the company was developing, perhaps they should explain why.

Commenting on the apology of Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI's chief scientist, when he and the board ousted Sam Altman, Elon Musk said: 'Why would you take such drastic action? If OpenAI did something that could potentially endanger humanity, the world needs to know.'

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