[sdenton4]

The overwhelming majority of animal species never developed (what we would consider) language processing capabilities. So agi doesn't seem like something that evolution is particularly good at producing; more an emergent trait, eventually appearing in things designed simply to not die for long enough to reproduce...

[Kim_Bruning]

Define "animal species", if you mean vertebrates, you might be surprised by the modern ethological literature. If you mean to exclude non-vertebrates ... you might be surprised by the ethological literature too.

If you just mean majority of spp, you'd be correct, simply because most are single celled. Though debate is possible when we talk about forms of chemical signalling.

[sdenton4]

Yeah, it's tricky to talk about in the span of a comment. I work on Things Involving Animals - animals provide an excellent counter-current to discussion around AGI, in numerous ways.

One interesting parallel was the gradual redefinition of language over the course of the 20th century to exclude animals as their capabilities became more obvious. So, when I say 'language processing capacities', I mean it roughly in the sense of Chomsky-era definitions, after the goal posts had been thoroughly moved away from much more inclusive definitions.

Likewise, we've been steadily moving the bar on what counts as 'intelligence', both for animals and machines. Over the last couple decades the study of animal intelligence has been more inclusive, IMO, and recognize intelligence as capabilities within the specific sensorium and survival context of the particular species. Our study of artificial intelligence are still very crude by comparison, and are still in the 'move the goalposts so that humans stay special' stage of development...