Dr. Ben Goertzel, SingularityNET CEO and BGI Labs Founder, on Why Stacking Tools Around an LLM Won't Get Us to AGI

A- a- along those lines, um, I'm gonna ask you a question that's not rhetorical.

I really...

I, I'd like to hear it from Dr. Goertzel.

Um, what is a human?

I mean, that's, that's an evolving, uh, a nebulous entity, right? Uh, I mean, of course, there's, there's the biological definition which is important and foundational, right? Like we are bo- bodies as well as mind, and we're, we're a certain quite remarkable ...

biological species, and that conditions all the other more abstract conceptions of what it, what it is to be, to be human.

And then, you know, beyond that, there's the cultural aspect which then veers into psychological and, and spir- spiritual aspects.

I mean, I mean, our, our humanity is a...

It's a way of thinking, a way of feeling, a way of being ind- individually and, and collectively, and that...

Three cheers for humanity, yeah.

The cultural/psychological, you know, /spiritual aspect has been evolving a great deal, and I, I would say the common elements are only evident in hindsight, right? Like, yeah, I mean, you had Stone Age society, you, you, you, you, you had early civilization, you have industrial society, now post-industrial society, soon to have post-singularity society.

And there's been so much change that what we are today might not be recognized as human by people from the Middle Age or the, or the Stone Age when they, they see us walking around with our, our ear pods in and sta- staring, staring at our, our, our phones all day and falling in love with AI girlfriends and, and, and whatnot.

So we see ourselves as human, and we see the thread of continuity with the past.

But would folks in the past recognize us as one of them? Not, not entirely clear, right? I mean, look at the trouble that folks from, say, an isolated Amazonian tribe have when they're plonked into, into a modern city.

I mean, they don't quite feel that they're among their peers, right? So I think the thread of humanity is there, but it's a subtle thing, recognizable better in hindsight than in foresight.

And you could draw an analogy there to the thread of evolution of the self of each of us, so, right? Like two-year-old Ben Goertzel, five-year-old Ben Goertzel, 12-year-old Ben Goertzel.

Like day by day, there hasn't been a day when I woke up and perceived a huge discontinuous jump with what I was the previous day, right? I mean, I, I could be hungover in the morning.

I was, uh, I was partying the last night, but it's still me, right? On, on the other hand, between the two-year-old version of me and the 59 version of me, it's a very big jump, right? And would the two-year-old me recognize the 59-year-old me as the same guy? I mean, not really, right? I mean, it wouldn't be able to conceptualize it, right? So maybe the 10-year-old me would partly.

He'd be disgusted and alarmed by some of the, some of the, the, the directions I've gone and amazed and, and, uh, thrilled at some of the directions I've gone, right? Right.

Same way with a, a culture or, uh, the collective mind of a, of a sp- species, right? Like, uh, day by day, humanity has evolved, but what we've evolved into in...

bears little resemblance in many ways to what, what we were originally.

And, uh, that's important to recognize when you think about our future evolution, right? Because we...

Some form of humanity will likely be around 50 or 100 years from now.

It may look very different than what humanity is now.

Many people today might be alarmed if they could see what humanity is gonna be 100 years from now.

A- a- along those lines, um, I'm gonna ask you a question that's not rhetorical.

I really...

I, I'd like to hear it from Dr. Goertzel.

Um, what is a human?

I mean, that's, that's an evolving, uh, a nebulous entity, right? Uh, I mean, of course, there's, there's the biological definition which is important and foundational, right? Like we are bo- bodies as well as mind, and we're, we're a certain quite remarkable ...

biological species, and that conditions all the other more abstract conceptions of what it, what it is to be, to be human.

And then, you know, beyond that, there's the cultural aspect which then veers into psychological and, and spir- spiritual aspects.

I mean, I mean, our, our humanity is a...

It's a way of thinking, a way of feeling, a way of being ind- individually and, and collectively, and that...

Three cheers for humanity, yeah.

The cultural/psychological, you know, /spiritual aspect has been evolving a great deal, and I, I would say the common elements are only evident in hindsight, right? Like, yeah, I mean, you had Stone Age society, you, you, you, you, you had early civilization, you have industrial society, now post-industrial society, soon to have post-singularity society.

And there's been so much change that what we are today might not be recognized as human by people from the Middle Age or the, or the Stone Age when they, they see us walking around with our, our ear pods in and sta- staring, staring at our, our, our phones all day and falling in love with AI girlfriends and, and, and whatnot.

So we see ourselves as human, and we see the thread of continuity with the past.

But would folks in the past recognize us as one of them? Not, not entirely clear, right? I mean, look at the trouble that folks from, say, an isolated Amazonian tribe have when they're plonked into, into a modern city.

I mean, they don't quite feel that they're among their peers, right? So I think the thread of humanity is there, but it's a subtle thing, recognizable better in hindsight than in foresight.

And you could draw an analogy there to the thread of evolution of the self of each of us, so, right? Like two-year-old Ben Goertzel, five-year-old Ben Goertzel, 12-year-old Ben Goertzel.

Like day by day, there hasn't been a day when I woke up and perceived a huge discontinuous jump with what I was the previous day, right? I mean, I, I could be hungover in the morning.

I was, uh, I was partying the last night, but it's still me, right? On, on the other hand, between the two-year-old version of me and the 59 version of me, it's a very big jump, right? And would the two-year-old me recognize the 59-year-old me as the same guy? I mean, not really, right? I mean, it wouldn't be able to conceptualize it, right? So maybe the 10-year-old me would partly.

He'd be disgusted and alarmed by some of the, some of the, the, the directions I've gone and amazed and, and, uh, thrilled at some of the directions I've gone, right? Right.

Same way with a, a culture or, uh, the collective mind of a, of a sp- species, right? Like, uh, day by day, humanity has evolved, but what we've evolved into in...

bears little resemblance in many ways to what, what we were originally.

And, uh, that's important to recognize when you think about our future evolution, right? Because we...

Some form of humanity will likely be around 50 or 100 years from now.

It may look very different than what humanity is now.

Many people today might be alarmed if they could see what humanity is gonna be 100 years from now.