[Udo]

Only a minuscule fraction of people who work with/in AI are doing general artificial intelligence. The rest is really more about making sense of the vast and growing amounts of data our world produces. The non-human intelligences that benefit from this are corporations, not artificial minds. It's actually sad that AGI research is still a fringe idea.

[AndrewKemendo]

Sadly, you are correct. The AGI conference this year was about 84 people total. Growing, but nowhere near where it needs to be.

[tormeh]

Well, the brain seems to be a collection of a whole lot of fancy algorithms, and the statisticians are making a big contribution here.

[wuschel]

I am not into the research field of general artifical intelligence. How does the "Human Brain Project" fit into this matter? It seems to me like the EU is directing quite a financial package into the direction of AGI, at least when it comes to understanding human brain activity and functionality.

link: https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/

[Udo]

The Human Brain Project is a basic science endeavor, it's not directly related to AGI research.

In principle, there are two directions AGI work is going: one is the brain emulation approach, the other is aiming at creating a synthetic mind from scratch. Obviously, this is a spectrum with two extreme ends, but compared to overall AI work being performed by our civilization not a lot of people are working on this at all (which is surprising considering the implications of even a moderate success).

A lot of the brain simulation and mapping projects concern themselves not with running an actual mind on silicon. Instead, they are fundamental science projects with goals like modeling neuronal behavior or helping out in pharmaceutical research. Even the "neuron-like" processors that are starting to come out right now are not intended for AGI.