MINDSET VERSUS MINDERS : A.I. GLOBAL ESSAY

LIKE many other voices across Silicon Valley and beyond, executives predict that the arrival of artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I., is imminent.

Since the early 2000s, when a group of fringe researchers put the term on the cover of a book that described the autonomous computer system they hoped to build one day, A.G.I. has served as shorthand for a future technology that achieves human-level intelligence.

There is no settled definition of A.G.I., just an entrancing idea ; an artificial intelligence that can match the many powers of the human mind.

Mr. Altman, Mr. Amodei and Mr. Musk have long chased this goal, as have executives and researchers at companies like Google and Microsoft and thanks in part, to their fervent pursuit of this ambitious idea-

They have produced technologies that are changing the way hundreds of millions of people research make art and program computers. These technologies are now poised to transform entire professions.

But since the arrival of chatbots like OpenAI and ChatGPT, and the rapid improvement of these strange and powerful systems over the past two years, many technologies have grown increasingly bold in predicting how soon A.G.I will arrive.

Some are even saying that once they deliver A.G.I., a more powerful creation called '' superintelligence '' will follow.

As these eternally confident voices predict the near future, their speculations are getting ahead of reality.

And though their companies are pushing the technology forward at a remarkable rate, an army of more sober voices are quick to dispel any claim that machines will soon match human intellect.

'' The technology we're building today is not sufficient to get there,'' said Nick Frosst, a founder of the A.I. startup Cohere who previously worked as a researcher at Google and studied under the most revered A.I. researcher of the last 50 years.

'' What we are building now are things that take in words and predict the next most likely word,  or they take in pixels and predict the most likely pixel. '' That's very different from what you and I do.''

The Publishing of this Master Essay continues.  The World Students Society thanks Cade Metz.

Uzbekistan Qualify For World Cup For First Time

Uzbekistan, one of the fastest-rising national teams in Asia, kept their hosts at bay in the Emirati capital to seal the second automatic spot in Group A and make history. Iran, who take on Qatar later on Thursday, have already secured their place in next year's tournament in North America.

The UAE, who had Cosmin Olaroiu taking charge for the first time having last month replaced Paulo Bento as manager, must now contest a further round of qualifying.

The top two teams in each of the three Asian groups go straight to the World Cup, while those finishing third and fourth enter a fourth round of qualifiers.

Jordan are on the verge of joining Uzbekistan at a first World Cup courtesy of a superb 3-0 victory against Oman in Muscat.

Ali Olwan scored all three goals to send the 2023 Asian Cup runners-up to the top of the group.

They now lead second-placed South Korea on goal difference, with the perennial World Cup qualifiers still to play third-placed Iraq on Thursday. Jordan welcome Iraq to Amman in five days' time in the third round's final set of fixtures.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia defeated Bahrain 2-0 in Riffa to tee up a showdown with Australia for the second automatic spot in Group C.

- AFP