Artificial General Intelligence

Translation from English by Artem Smirnov. – Moscow: Gaidar Institute Press, 2025. – 208 p.

ISBN 978-5-93255-691-7

In his book, Julian Togelius examines technical approaches to creating more general artificial intelligence and speculates on how such intelligence might affect human development.

He begins by giving examples of narrow AI that have superhuman performance in some way. Interestingly, there have been AI systems that are superhuman in some sense for more than half a century. Togelius then discusses what it would mean to have general intelligence, by looking at definitions from psychology, ethology, and computer science. Next, the author explores the two main families of technical approaches to developing more general artificial intelligence: foundation models through self-supervised learning, and open-ended learning in virtual environments. The final chapters of the book investigate potential artificial general intelligence beyond the strictly technical aspects. The questions discussed here investigate whether such general AI would be conscious, whether it would pose a risk to humanity, and how it might alter society.

The book contains references to Meta Platforms Inc. included in the List of Public Associations and Religious Organizations, in respect of which the court issued a decision, which has entered into legal force, on liquidation or prohibition of activity on the grounds provided for by the Federal Law of 25.07.2002 № 114-FZ “On Countering Extremist Activity”.