Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
Hypothetical AI that can match or exceed human cognitive abilities across essentially all tasks, rather than being narrowly specialised.
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) refers to AI systems with broad cognitive abilities matching or exceeding those of humans across essentially any task — learning new domains, abstract reasoning, planning, social understanding, and physical interaction with the world.
Current AI systems are narrow — extraordinary at specific tasks but unable to transfer skills to fundamentally different domains. AGI would be general, like humans.
Major AI labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepMind, Meta) all state AGI as a goal. Predictions for when AGI will arrive vary wildly: some researchers say within 5-10 years, others 50+ years. The alignment problem — ensuring AGI systems pursue human-beneficial goals — is a major focus of AI safety research.