Position: Stop treating `AGI' as the north-star goal of AI research
Borhane Blili-Hamelin, Christopher Graziul, Leif Hancox-Li, Hananel Hazan, El-Mahdi El-Mhamdi, Avijit Ghosh, Katherine A Heller, Jacob Metcalf
Abstract
The AI research community plays a vital role in shaping the scientific, engineering, and societal goals of AI research. In this position paper, we argue that focusing on the highly contested topic of 'artificial general intelligence' ('AGI') undermines our ability to choose effective goals. We identify six key traps---obstacles to productive goal setting---that are aggravated by AGI discourse: Illusion of Consensus, Supercharging Bad Science, Presuming Value-Neutrality, Goal Lottery, Generality Debt, and Normalized Exclusion. To avoid these traps, we argue that the AI research community needs to (1) prioritize specificity in scientific, engineering, and societal goals, (2) center pluralism about multiple worthwhile approaches to multiple valuable goals, and (3) foster innovation through greater inclusion of disciplines and communities. Therefore, the AI research community needs to stop treating ``AGI'' as the north-star goal of AI research.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{
blili-hamelin2025position,
title={Position: Stop treating `{AGI}' as the north-star goal of {AI} research},
author={Borhane Blili-Hamelin and Christopher Graziul and Leif Hancox-Li and Hananel Hazan and El-Mahdi El-Mhamdi and Avijit Ghosh and Katherine A Heller and Jacob Metcalf and Fabricio Murai and Eryk Salvaggio and Andrew J Smart and Todd Snider and Mariame Tighanimine and Talia Ringer and Margaret Mitchell and Shiri Dori-Hacohen},
booktitle={Forty-second International Conference on Machine Learning Position Paper Track},
year={2025},
url={https://openreview.net/forum?id=1RlrtH6ydW}
}