Unsocial Intelligence: an Investigation of the Assumptions of AGI Discourse

TL;DR

This paper tackles the fragmentation in AGI discourse by arguing that 'AGI' definitions are thick, value-laden concepts that encode political and ethical commitments. It develops a taxonomy of AGI definitions and highlights key dimensions where values influence what counts as progress, embodiment, generality, and benchmarks. It then critiques deflationary, neutral readings and proposes contextualized, democratic, and participatory paths to imagining future machine intelligence, emphasizing inductive risk and epistemic justice. The authors connect intelligence to social context and advocate democratic governance as a precondition for legitimate AI futures. The contribution provides a framework to analyze who benefits or harms from different AGI visions and to guide more legitimate, inclusive decision-making.

Abstract

Dreams of machines rivaling human intelligence have shaped the field of AI since its inception. Yet, the very meaning of human-level AI or artificial general intelligence (AGI) remains elusive and contested. Definitions of AGI embrace a diverse range of incompatible values and assumptions. Contending with the fractured worldviews of AGI discourse is vital for critiques that pursue different values and futures. To that end, we provide a taxonomy of AGI definitions, laying the ground for examining the key social, political, and ethical assumptions they make. We highlight instances in which these definitions frame AGI or human-level AI as a technical topic and expose the value-laden choices being implicitly made. Drawing on feminist, STS, and social science scholarship on the political and social character of intelligence in both humans and machines, we propose contextual, democratic, and participatory paths to imagining future forms of machine intelligence. The development of future forms of AI must involve explicit attention to the values it encodes, the people it includes or excludes, and a commitment to epistemic justice.