As we are all aware that today’s society heavily depends on technology and its artificial intelligence is one of the fastest-growing technologies. However, many of us don’t have a clear understanding of the subject and tend to mix information, while discussing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
Even though, both AI and AGI are branches of computer science and are created to deal with intelligent systems, the difference between these is rather simple.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence works on a supervised learning system, where various sets of data are provided to the machines, to learn from examples. This helps AI to classify objects or predict the results. For instance, with several inputs of car images, it learns, recognizes, and provides an outcome, when you Google a car image. Although AI performs intelligent tasks, its reach is very narrow and limited as it can only provide an outcome that is already programmed. It cannot take unpredictable decisions on its own, like a human brain can. This is why Artificial Intelligence is also known as Narrow AI or Weak AI.
Artificial General Intelligence
Artificial General Intelligence, on the contrary, is the intelligence of a machine that could perform all the intellectual tasks performed by human
beings. It possesses the ability to analyze a situation on its own and take a
calculative decision, like humans can, without having to be programmed in advance. Hence, it is also known as true intelligence or real intelligence. AGI expects machines to be as smart as humans, for this reason, it is sometimes referred to as strong AI or strict AI. Although, AGI doesn’t exist as of now, it is the primary goal of Artificial General Intelligence research across the world, and many researchers believe that it is possible to create AGI in the near future.
Artificial Intelligence Vs Artificial General Intelligence
| Artificial Intelligence | Artificial General Intelligence |
| Artificial Intelligence is based on Human Cognition. | Artificial General Intelligence is based on Human intellectual ability. |
| Artificial Intelligence cannot acquire new knowledge and skills unless programmed to learn them from time-to-time. Every individual skill has to be taught to AI, unlike AGI. | Artificial General Intelligence’s aim is to acquire new set of knowledge and skills, in real time, which means, it can learn everything at a single time. |
| AI can perform only the coded instructional tasks; hence, can only offer solutions that are fed to the machine in advance. For example, if 2×2=4 is saved in the system, it will generate the same information. | AGI could truly understand language; possess the ability to have meaningful conversations, and reason contextually, logically, and abstractly, to offer genuine solutions to problems. |
| AI has the outcome preprogrammed beforehand; hence, it performs tasks accordingly, without having to remember any recent event or understand the reasons for its actions. | AGI is aimed at remembering recent events and interactions, like short-term memory in humans, along with understanding the purpose of an action. |
| AI makes decisions that are logical based on empirical data. | AGI is expected to make decisions that are heavily intellectual, based on instinct and situation. |
| It is unlikely for AI to exhibit human emotions, like love and hate. | Although, there is a possibility for AGI to recognize and respond appropriately to human emotions, while considering various facets, like surprise, sadness, confusion, joy, love, hate, etc., it is unlikely to exhibit or feel those emotions. |
Undoubtedly, technology has advanced immensely today and machines have become an integral part of providing services to human beings, but they still require human intervention and are incapable of operating fully-intellectually yet. Such intelligence seems highly unlikely to be accomplished anytime soon by a machine, let alone replace human beings.