The Illusion of AGI and the Dawn of Post-Cognitive Humanity
As artificial intelligence grows more sophisticated by the day, the notion of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) looms large—a machine that can think and reason like and even better than humans. But what if AGI, as we imagine it, is an illusion—contrived by our myopic expectations for super computation? What if it's true role is not to match or surpass human intelligence, but to fundamentally reshape how we engage with reality? This isn’t about machines becoming human; rather, it’s about machines taking over cognitive tasks and freeing us to explore a new, post-cognitive frontier.
We often equate intelligence with data processing and reasoning. AGI, in its theoretical form, promises to mimic these abilities across domains, but there’s a growing argument that AGI will never fully attain human intelligence in the same way we experience it. Instead, AGI might act as a powerful cognitive illusion, simulating human-like thinking while lacking true consciousness or self-awareness.
This illusion, however, is far from trivial. Machines like LLMs and future AGIs excel in fact-centric cognition—processing vast amounts of data, making predictions, and even creating content. They perform at a level that is, in many cases, beyond human capabilities. But intelligence isn’t simply a matter of processing information. Human thought is intricately tied to........
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