Google DeepMind Is Hiring a 'Post-AGI' Research Scientist

An anonymous reader shares a report: None of the frontier AI research labs have presented any evidence that they are on the brink of achieving artificial general intelligence, no matter how they define that goal, but Google is already planning for a 'Post-AGI' world by hiring a scientist for its DeepMind AI lab to research the 'profound impact' that technology will have on society.

'Spearhead research projects exploring the influence of AGI on domains such as economics, law, health/wellbeing, AGI to ASI [artificial superintelligence], machine consciousness, and education,' Google says in the first item on a list of key responsibilities for the job. Artificial superintelligence refers to a hypothetical form of AI that is smarter than the smartest human in all domains. This is self explanatory, but just to be clear, when Google refers to 'machine consciousness' it's referring to the science fiction idea of a sentient machine.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Elon Musk, and other major and minor players in the AI industry are all working on AGI and have previously talked about the likelihood of humanity achieving AGI, when that might happen, and what the consequences might be, but the Google job listing shows that companies are now taking concrete steps for what comes after, or are at least are continuing to signal that they believe it can be achieved.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.