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 beco

See Full Page