Everyone is obsessed with artificial general intelligence—the stage when AI can match all feats of human cognition. The guy who named it saw it as a threat.In the summer of 1956, a group of academics—now we’d call them computer scientists but there was no such thing then—met on Dartmouth College campus in New Hampshire to discuss how to make machines think like humans. One of them, John McCarthy, coined the term “artificial intelligence.” This legendary meeting and the naming of a new field, is well known.In this century, a variation of the term has stepped to the forefront: artificial general intelligence, or AGI—the stage at which computers can match or surpass human intelligence. AGI was the driver of this week’s headlines: a deal between OpenAI and Microsoft that hinged on what happens if OpenAI achieves it; massive capital expenditures from Meta, Google, and Microsoft to pursue it; the thirst to achieve it helping Nvidia to become a $5 trillion company. US politicians have said if we don’t get it before China does, we’re cooked. Prognosticators say we might get it before the decade is out, and it will change everything. The origin of that term, however, and how it was originally defined, is not so well-known. But there is a clear answer to that question. The person who first came up with the most important acronym of the 21st century so far— as well as a definition that is still pretty much the way we think of it today—is unfamiliar to just about everybody. This is his story....
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80 sats \ 2 replies \ @optimism 13h
Wait... everyone is still obsessed with AGI? I thought we left that behind in June. I thought we all knew by now that it's a mirage to keep people afraid?
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100 sats \ 1 reply \ @jakoyoh629 OP 13h
Nothing to be scared of, yet. Just some backstory!
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70 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 13h
Yeah! I do like that he fights for his 5 seconds in the spotlight haha
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0 sats \ 8 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 10h
The dangers will be largely ignored because the race to achieve AGI before China is now the last chance for the declining west to maintain its global hegemony military industrial hegemony.
Chinas mixed economy looks very likely to win this race just as it has won on rare earths, robotics, nuclear, wind, hydro and solar power generation, manufacturing, shipping, infrastructure, EVs, PVs, batteries, LEDs and nearly every other high tech sector.
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10 sats \ 7 replies \ @jakoyoh629 OP 9h
I've always said China's gonna take over the world bit by bit, on their own time, but I don't think we'll be alive to see it happen. A system that can control its own people like that has a huge advantage. The drama continues, don't miss the next episode, because I won't either. Ah
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0 sats \ 6 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 9h
Historically Chinas model of empire was quite different to the model adopted by the west.
They expected tribute and respect from nations within their region but did not interfere in the internal government of those nations.
Instead the relationship with other nations was on the basis of trade and commerce.
The Chinatown enclaves across Asia have existed for hundreds sometimes thousands of years enabling trade and exchange without dictating to the governments of other countries.
I don't think most westerners can understand the Chinese, and probably fear more than understand them.
Not saying I welcome Chinese global dominance, because it does come with uncertainty and probable loss of our historical privileged position, but rather that we need to get more educated about how Chinese hegemony might look- it might be quite different to how we think.
It could even be better in some ways, than the model of conquest, pillage and subjugation the west has employed over the last 500 years.
From an economic perspective China has already won the trade war, now enjoying unquestionable dominance in the efficiency with which it manufactures the goods that other nations need and it dominates global commodity markets as a consequence.
In terms of technology it now leads in robotics, EVs, batteries, PVs, infrastructure, shipping, solar, hydro, nuclear and wind power generation.
A key driver of Chinas economic dominance is its conscious strategy of producing and delivering the lowest priced electricity to its consumers and producers, resulting in the ability to produce most products at a lower cost than any other competitor.
Similar deliberate strategies o investing heavily in key technology and skills combine to deliver already global dominance in terms of trade.
The Wests legacy hegemony is not far from collapse, as the debt burden of the US already makes selling USTs increasingly difficult- the tipping point where US hegemony collapses is actually very close- 3-5 years at most.
They have just given Trump some resumption of supply of rare earths, for 6-12 months, while they achieve microchip production capability at 4 nm.
Without rare earths US military industrial combine is crippled.
It will be at least 10 years before USA regains rare earth supply chains independent of China.
Unless you are terminally ill or very unlucky you are very likely to witness China being the dominant global power.
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14 sats \ 5 replies \ @jakoyoh629 OP 9h
People are the most important thing in all of this, right? Do you think the Chinese are gonna live better and the rest of the world worse?
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21 sats \ 4 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 9h
Quite possible that many nations/people could be better off in a Chinese dominant world than they are under western hegemony.
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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @jakoyoh629 OP 9h
In what ways would a nation/person be better off in a Chinese dominated world?
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 8h
Already many nations that export commodities and import manufactured goods are measurably better off due to the Chinese economy.
China pays the best price for many commodities and supplies manufactured goods at the lowest price.
Chinas manufacturing efficiency has been a major factor in holding down global inflation for several decades already.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @jakoyoh629 OP 8h
Labor is very expensive in the West. What can governments do to solve this?
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