Artificial General Intelligence (Cognitive Technologies)

This is the first book on current research on artificial general intelligence (AGI), work explicitly focused on engineering general intelligence – autonomous, self-reflective, self-improving, commonsensical intelligence. Each author explains a specific aspect of AGI in detail in each chapter, while also investigating the common themes in the work of diverse groups, and posing the big, open questions in this vital area.

This book will be of interest to researchers and students who require a coherent treatment of AGI and the relationships between AI and related fields such as physics, philosophy, neuroscience, linguistics, psychology, biology, sociology, anthropology and engineering.

Our goal in creating this edited volume has been to fill an apparent gap in the scientific literature, by providing a coherent presentation of a body of contemporary research that, in spite of its integral importance, has hitherto kept a very low profile within the scientific and intellectual community. This body of work has not been given a name before; in this book we christen it “Artificial General Intelligence” (AGI). What distinguishes AGI work from run-of-the-mill “artificial intelligence” research is that it is explicitly focused on engineering general intelligence in the short term. We have been active researchers in the AGI field for many years, and it has been a pleasure to gather together papers from our colleagues working on related ideas from their own perspectives. In the Introduction we give a conceptual overview of the AGI field, and also summarize and interrelate the key ideas of the papers in the subsequent chapters.