A note on AGI as concept and as shibboleth [kissing cousin to singularity]
Artificial intelligence as ambitious from its beginnings in the mid-1950s and this or that practitioner would confidently predict that before long computers could perform any mental activity that humans could. As a practical matter, however, AI systems tended to be narrowly focused. The field’s grander ambitions seemed ever in retreat. Finally, at long last, one of those grand ambitions was realized. In 1997 IBM’s Deep Blue beat world champion Gary Kasparov in chess.
But that was only chess. Humans remained ahead of computers in all other spheres and AI kept cranking out narrowly focused systems. Why? Because ...