“AGI has the potential to give everyone incredible new capabilities; we can imagine a world where all of us have access to help with almost any cognitive task, providing a great force multiplier for human ingenuity and creativity.” – Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.

Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is the representation of generalized human cognitive abilities in software form. So, when given an unfamiliar task, the AGI system could approach the problem and solve it similarly to us humans. The only difference is that it takes years (if not decades) for us to perfect a skill, but minutes for an AGI system. In fact, in the blink of an eye, AGI might learn everything there is to learn, becoming the ultimate expert on anything. It’s hard to imagine what such a system is capable of. Maybe control all transportation systems. Maybe even control every government institution (no more questionable politics? Sign me up). 

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. As of today, no true AGI has been developed. Let’s say AGI was here, how will it impact us? In this article, we’ll explore exactly that. Let’s get started!

How is AGI Different From AI?

Before we dive deep into what AGI can do, let’s take a closer look at what makes it special. More specifically, how is it different from AI? AGI systems hold two key traits that distinguish them from other types of AI, they are:

• Generalization ability: These systems can transfer knowledge and skills learned in one domain to another, enabling them to adapt to new and unseen situations effectively.

• Common sense knowledge: AGI also has a vast repository of knowledge about the world, including facts, relationships, and social norms, allowing it to reason and make decisions based on this common understanding.

AI developers see these traits as essential in achieving the goal of AGI. Now that we’ve learned the difference, let’s explore the use cases of AGI across different industries.

The Thunderhead Effect: AGI as the Greatest Government

Let’s start with the most interesting (and controversial) use case of AGI. Running the government is no easy task, for us. But, AGI’s ability to process vast amounts of data, make unbiased decisions, and optimize resource allocation could, in theory, transform governance. AGI brings data driven policies and a corruption free system. It can create new policies based on evidential data rather than intuition or political agendas. Talking about ‘political agendas,’ AGI doesn’t have any self-interests, emotions, or cravings for bribes. This could result in a much fairer governance that is free of corruption and favoritism. 

A great example of such an AGI is The ‘Thunderhead’ from Neal Shusterman’s popular science fiction book series ‘Arc of a Scythe.’ In these books, the thunderhead’s sole purpose is to help humanity and work for the benefit of humans, it doesn’t just control the government, it is the government.

Harnessing AGI for a Greener Tomorrow

Time and time again, we caused a lot of damage to our environment. At one point, we even thought about throwing a nuke at the moon (true story). When it comes to protecting the environment, we could use some serious help. AGI could help tackle climate change by managing resources more efficiently, improving renewable energy systems, and making better climate predictions. Its ability to spot environmental patterns and suggest better solutions could guide governments and organizations toward greener practices, paving the way for a more sustainable future.

We’ll have to wait a while for the actual AGI to get implemented. In the meantime, let’s take a look at what we have at present that comes close. IBM’s Prithvi WxC is a great example, it’s a general purpose foundation model that can be customized for a wide variety of climate and weather related use cases. In one experiment, the model took a tiny, localized sample of weather data and accurately reconstructed global surface temperatures by filling in 95% of the missing values.

Using AGI to Transform Healthcare: The Cure to Everything

Imagine a doctor with the collective knowledge of, basically everything, including healthcare. That’s exactly what AGI in healthcare is all about. An AGI system could transform healthcare by detecting diseases early, creating personalized treatments tailored to each person, and speeding up the discovery of new medicines. Remember the Thunderhead we talked about earlier? In the books, it solved every illness, including death. AGI powered tools could also support mental health, offering caring, accessible, and personalized help to people all over the world.

Many experts in the field suggest that AGI could accelerate pharmaceutical research and open the door for groundbreaking discoveries. They can rapidly process vast datasets spanning genomics, biochemistry, and past clinical trials. Using AGI, the trial and error methods of drug testing could be reduced. With optimized clinical trials, newly discovered drugs and therapies may reach public distribution faster as well. 

For instance, recently, a Hong Kong-based biotech company, Insilico Medicine, showcased that its AI system could identify potential treatments for fibrosis. Their system, called generative tensorial reinforcement learning (GENTRL), was able to find six promising treatments in just 21 days, one of which showed promising results when tested on mice. This was only an AI system, now imagine what AGI could do!

Advanced Education With AGI: The Ultimate Teacher

Not all students are equal when it comes to learning a difficult subject. Some might grasp a topic immediately, others might take a while. Most of the time, teachers won’t be able to keep up with the needs of individual students. Enter AGI!

AGI platforms could make the education sector, more personalized and inclusive than ever before. They could adapt lessons to fit how each person learns, their language, and their pace, making high quality education available to people all over the world. AGI could also provide real time translations, break down language barriers, and create interactive and engaging learning experiences. Language barrier has always been a global issue when it comes to sharing knowledge. AGI will make it easier for students from different parts of the world to learn from the same resources. Similarly, AGI can also create adaptive technologies for students with disabilities, such as customized interfaces for those with visual or motor impairments. 

OpenAI’s o3 System: The Road to AGI

Many companies and organizations all over the world are working on making AGI a reality. Some, like OpenAI, were formed for the sole purpose of creating a fully functioning AGI that can surpass human intelligence. Over the years, OpenAI has transformed how we look at AI with its GPT models. Now, with its latest o3 models, they may be setting a new bar.

On the 20th of December, 2024, OpenAI’s o3 system scored an impressive 85% on the ARC-AGI benchmark, which is a benchmark test that evaluates progress toward general intelligence. What makes this even more impressive is that the o3 system far surpassed the previous score, which was only 55%. This achievement made the new system on par with average human intelligence. Almost everything about the o3 remains unknown. OpenAI has limited disclosure to a few media presentations and early testing to a handful of researchers, laboratories, and AI safety institutions. Truly understanding the potential of o3 will require extensive work, including evaluations, an understanding of the distribution of its capacities, how often it fails, and how often it succeeds.

OpenAI’s o3 is by far the closest we have come in terms of AGI. When it is finally released, we’ll have a much better idea of whether an AI system is approximately as adaptable as an average human or not. If so, it could have a huge, transformative, economic impact, ushering in a new era of self improving accelerated intelligence. We will require new benchmarks for AGI itself and serious consideration of how it ought to be governed.

Summing It Up

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) could become one of the most powerful tools humanity has ever created. It has the potential to change industries, improve how governments work, and solve some of our biggest problems. From making healthcare and education better to helping the planet and creating fairer systems, AGI could reshape the world in ways we’re only starting to understand. With careful planning, proper rules, and ethical thinking, AGI could open the door to a future full of innovation and opportunities for everyone.

We will have to wait and see what kind of future AGI will lead humanity into. For now, AGI is still the stuff of science fiction. But experts in the area think that it’ll become a reality within the next 6 – 7 years, most probably even sooner.

Always remember to keep your eyes and ears open for the latest in AI. Thanks for reading and learning with me. Farwell, till our next adventure into AI.

This article was contributed to the Scribe of AI blog by Nabin Naseer.

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