[AndrewKemendo]

How does one make a living out of being an AGI researcher? How does one pay mortgage and has money and freedom to go on impulsive vacations with their wife?

Well you don't, unless you work for OpenAI (which I don't). Not sure how OpenAI does it or how well they pay but I'm sure it's good. They have good donors.

And what does an AGI practitioner even mean?

To clarify, I'm a ML practitioner. AGI practitioner means nothing

[pdimitar]

I don't mean to sound demeaning but yes, IMO "AGI practitioner" indeed means nothing (and I am saying that as a guy who aspires to work on AGI). Many of us programmers have interesting ideas in the area of AGI but quite frankly, we can "practice" them our whole lives without achieving squat.

Thank you for responding, much appreciated.