{"id":259866,"date":"2024-09-16T21:59:04","date_gmt":"2024-09-16T21:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/16\/neil-lawrence-interview-the-ai-expert-who-says-artificial-general-intelligence-is-nonsense\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:11:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:11:18","slug":"neil-lawrence-interview-the-ai-expert-who-says-artificial-general-intelligence-is-nonsense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/16\/neil-lawrence-interview-the-ai-expert-who-says-artificial-general-intelligence-is-nonsense\/","title":{"rendered":"Neil Lawrence interview: The AI expert who says artificial general intelligence is nonsense"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<figure class=\"ArticleImage\">\n<div class=\"Image__Wrapper\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"Image\" width=\"1350\" height=\"900\" alt=\"New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.\" src=\"https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg\" sizes=\"(min-width: 1288px) 837px, (min-width: 1024px) calc(57.5vw + 55px), (min-width: 415px) calc(100vw - 40px), calc(70vw + 74px)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=300 300w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=400 400w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=500 500w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=600 600w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=700 700w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=800 800w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=837 837w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=900 900w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=1003 1003w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=1100 1100w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=1200 1200w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=1300 1300w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=1400 1400w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=1500 1500w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=1600 1600w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=1674 1674w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=1700 1700w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=1800 1800w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=1900 1900w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/13114414\/SEI_221422062.jpg?width=2006 2006w\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" data-image-context=\"Article\" data-image-id=\"2447953\" data-caption=\"\" data-credit=\"Paul Ryding\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"ArticleImageCaption\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>What sets humans apart from the rest of life, or indeed inert matter? Many people would respond that it is our intelligence. Yet the rise of seemingly intelligent machines challenges this way of thinking. The companies behind these new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/definition\/artificial-intelligence-ai\/\">artificial intelligence technologies<\/a>, in the form of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/mg26234863-300-how-ai-mathematicians-might-finally-deliver-human-level-reasoning\/\">ChatGPT and its rivals<\/a>, speak of achieving <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/mg26234921-600-what-is-artificial-general-intelligence-and-is-it-a-useful-concept\/\">artificial general intelligence<\/a> \u2013 machines that have the same level of intelligence as humans across a range of tasks.<\/p>\n<p>Does this meteoric rise in AI make human intelligence, and therefore us, less special? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cst.cam.ac.uk\/people\/ndl21\">Neil Lawrence<\/a>, professor of machine learning at the University of Cambridge, doesn\u2019t think so. In fact, he thinks we should throw out the concept of artificial general intelligence altogether.<\/p>\n<p>In his new book <i>The Atomic Human: Understanding ourselves in the age of AI<\/i>, Lawrence makes the case that it is only by better understanding our own intelligence, and how wildly different it is to its artificial counterpart, that we can make the most of both. Here he tells <i>New Scientist<\/i> why he thinks both human and artificial intelligence are misunderstood, why it is pointless to compare the two and why, ultimately, we need a more nuanced understanding of intelligence.<\/p>\n<p><b>Alex Wilkins: What do you make of the trend to compare artificial to human intelligence?<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Neil Lawrence: Most of these arguments are pointless, they are irrelevant. Of course, the nature of the intelligence that we\u2019re seeing in AI is extremely different from our own. It\u2019s absurd that people are talking about this intelligence as if it\u2019s anything to do with us.\u2026<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/mg26335091-000-the-ai-expert-who-says-artificial-general-intelligence-is-nonsense\/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&#038;utm_source=NSNS&#038;utm_medium=RSS&#038;utm_content=home\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] What sets humans apart from the rest of life, or indeed inert matter? Many people would respond that it is our intelligence. Yet the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":259867,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259866"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}