Today we have an extraordinary invention—comparable to the wheel in its time. That invention is: predictive inference over all human knowledge. Period. I don't like calling it "Artificial Intelligence" because it's not intelligence; it's a prediction system that can project responses by illuminating patterns across all human knowledge encapsulated in text, audio, and video. What companies like OpenAI call "reasoning" models is simply that predictive process, but in a loop packaged as a product—one of the first marvelous uses of this fascinating invention: predictive inference over all human knowledge.
When the wheel was invented, no one could have imagined that, combined with hundreds of subsequent technologies, it would enable an electric car powered by solar energy. The wheel wasn't autonomous transportation—it was a fundamental component.
I see two debates getting mixed up here:
- The debate about the current invention: A tool that makes encyclopedias "speak" by connecting patterns across all human knowledge. As a tool, that's what it is—nothing more, nothing less. Tremendously useful, but a tool.
- The debate about the future dream: What this invention might enable when combined with hundreds of technologies that don't yet exist—similar to imagining an electric car when you only have the wheel.
It seems many experts are taking positions and getting "upset" because they're mixing these two debates. Some evaluate the wheel as if it should already be a solar electric car. Others defend the wheel by saying it already IS a solar electric car. Both are right in their observations, but they're talking about different things.
LLMs are a fundamental breakthrough—the "wheel" of the information age. But discussing whether they "understand" or have "world models" is like asking whether the wheel "comprehends transportation."
On the danger of confusing capabilities: Conflating the tool with the end goal leads us to poor decisions—from over-investment to under-utilization. When we expect AGI from what is fundamentally a pattern-matching engine, we set ourselves up for disappointment and misallocation of resources. No magic, just reality.
The temporal factor: The AGI debate is a debate about the future—about what might emerge from combinations of technologies we haven't yet invented.