We already have artificial general intelligence by long-standing historical definitions — the goalposts have simply been moved, so the industry doesn't need to chase further 'AGI' to get value.
Ali Ghodsi argues that by the AGI definitions used in academic AI labs decades ago, today's LLMs already qualify as AGI, and the industry should focus on deploying that intelligence rather than chasing superintelligence. ✦ AI generated
Ali Ghodsi · BG2 Pod · 2025-12-23 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 20:38
“How do you think this this plays out? ... How do you think this shakes out? You know, you've got you've got to make about a trillion dollars of revenue to justify this present spend that's already happening.”
I think we have AGI. I think we have artificial general intelligence. We really have it. We absolutely have it... It's like anyone who says we need to get to AGI, that's like it's it's a it's false premise to start with. We already have AGI.
verbatim transcript · starts at 20:38
20:18things with very little data compared to you know, like certainly no child is reading all of the internet's data four times over before they learn to speak. So, I don't So, that's like camp number two. Those guys by the way, they say it's 20 years out. Mhm. So, they're saying, "Hey, it's a physics problem and it's going to take 20 years to get there." Which to me it's like, "I don't know.
20:38Like, leave me alone." Mhm. Uh let me do research. Third camp, which is I think what we are in, is I don't think we need super intelligence. Like, you know, I don't think we need that super intelligence right now. Maybe they'll get there. That's awesome if they do. But, uh I think we have AGI. I think we have artificial general intelligence. We really have it. We absolutely have it.
20:56It's like anyone who says we need to get to AGI, that's like it's it's a it's false premise to start with. We already have AGI. Uh I came to the United States in 2009 at UC Berkeley not far away from here and I was in a AI lab. It was called AMP Lab. The A was for algorithms and AI, machines and people. And these are all AI people. And back then, the definition
21:17of AGI we had, we already have satisfied that. Like, Mhm. I know the discussions we had. And I actually went back to some of those folks to see like, is it just me or what was the sentiment back in 2009? And everybody that I talked to said, "Yeah, that's by those standards we had AGI, but we've changed the definition now." We have those definitions, you know, ads. So, for 30 40 years we had a
21:37definition of AGI. We've already hit that. Now, we're changing it and moving the goalpost. But, very obviously we already have AGI. Just use any of these LLMs and have it do some reasoning. And certainly it's smarter than many a lot of friends that you have that, right? Like, you know, let's let's not name our coworkers or whatever, right? Um so, you already have AGI. Now, now we're
21:56like haggling over exactly how smart is it. You know, do you have a friend that's smarter or not? Uh so, if we already have AGI, we just need to make it useful inside the enterprise. We need to just expand that 5% to be 10% 20% 30%. So, that's why I think Arvind's answer is actually a good answer. Like, we have the AGI we need. Let us just
22:12focus on solving the actual problems inside the organizations. And I think we can already that's that's enough to automate a lot of the tasks and get huge economic value out of it. We don't actually need super intelligence for that. That's good idea. If the super intelligence guys nail it, amazing. Then we've cured cancer. Um if they don't, hopefully the second camp comes up with a new thing in the next 20 years. That's
22:34also awesome. We already have whatever we need. So, Yeah. Yeah. Let us just do our engineering. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's really good framing. And the way this manifests in the in the you know, in the world is there's a data layer. There's the intelligence layer, which is where camp one is presumably producing a lot of great models. And then there's the software layer where the users engage with.
- ·Ali Ghodsi: "We absolutely have AGI"
- ·Today's LLMs qualify under decades-old academic definitions
- ·Goalposts have been moved, not the capability
- ·Chasing further AGI is a "false premise"
- ·Focus shifts from research milestones to real-world value
- ·Deploy existing intelligence rather than pursue superintelligence