FIELD GUIDE · AGI, DEFINITIONS & HYPE
There is no AGI referee. Labs disagree about whether the finish line is breadth, autonomy, human-level performance, or replacing valuable work.
UPDATED 2026-10-12
TL;DR
01
DeepMind's Levels of AGI paper opens by surveying multiple existing definitions, then proposes a framework built on performance and generality — autonomy tracked separately. The disagreement isn't media noise; labs operationalize the word differently.
02
OpenAI's Charter: AGI means highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work. No consciousness, humanoid body, or perfect scores required.
03
OpenAI's GDPval grades models on economically valuable real-world tasks drawn from 44 occupations. It measures part of the economic question. It doesn't crown AGI by itself.
04
DeepMind's framework splits narrow superhuman skill from broad general performance. The question isn't just 'how high did it score?' It's 'across how many genuinely different jobs?'
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Three serious attempts to define the magic word. None came with a referee.