Jensen Huang says AGI doesn’t really matter, and he may be right for the wrong reason

Skynet has missed another appointment.

Depending on which Terminator timeline you prefer, the murderous artificial intelligence should have become self-aware in 1997, 2004, 2011, 2017, or perhaps last Tuesday.

Each date has passed without a nuclear exchange.

The machines have mostly occupied themselves by flattering users, mangling fingers in photos, and confidently inventing facts for gullible people to believe.

That has not stopped Silicon Valley from treating artificial general intelligence as both an imminent miracle and an approaching monster.

AGI supposedly marks the moment a machine can match human intelligence across a broad range of tasks, though nobody can agree on which tasks, which humans, or what counts as intelligence.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang thinks it already happened and nobody noticed.

“For many tasks, we could say that we’ve already achieved AGI,” he said during Nvidia’s latest earnings call .

He added that such milestones are “kind of senseless at this point.” So much for Skynet.

But he is right that AGI has become close to useless as a measure of progress.

Companies can redefine it according to whatever their newest model happens to do well.

It's a promotion, not a scientific standard.

Apocalyptic decoy But AI isn't harmless even if it's not inclined to play with nuclear bombs.

There are less theatrical dangers from AI fueled by old-fashioned human greed and malevolence.