Ben Goertzel: Google May Be Abandoning Alternative Paths for the Final Sprint to AGI

Lots of interesting details here: Clearly this is the nail in the coffin for DeepMind as a semi-autonomous unit within Google... DeepMind will now be a regular Google division. As a consequence of 1, one would expect all the non-Gemini/LLM AGI R&D projects within DM -- with the very important exception of Shane Legg's team (which by. my perhaps wrong understanding has 50-100 great people in it, not trivial) -- to get torched or allowed to wither... Basically Google will now have two AGI bets: Gemini/LLM and whatever Shane's team is doing... This looks to be true. Google is no longer betting on world models, robotics, etc as being necessary for AGI. They are worried that Anthropic and OpenAI could get to AGI first since they are exclusively focused on text based/LLM's, and seem to be finding huge success in that approach. OpenAI cancelling Sora could have been a great move if it turns out that text alone can go all the way to AGI. It looks like Google may reduce the resources allocated to teams working on Genie, Gato, Sima, etc. One possible interpretation is that Demis has concluded that, while LLMs are inelegant and intellectually not that interesting, they may be good enough to get to the first HLAGI... which will then take care of building the next more-elegant and more-interesting AGI=>ASI architecture. If this is his perspective it would make sense for him to leave the AGI engineering to the Gemini folks for now, and focus on the broader social and economic and ethical issues. I suspect that Demis still believes in foundational world models and would have liked to continue to focus on Genie, Gato, etc, but because progress has been so slow on these fronts, while Anthropic and OpenAI have had multiple "Mythos" moments, Demis was likely encouraged to step aside so that DeepMind can go all in on LLM'S. None of this is bad for Google's standing in the LLM race. It may actually improve Googles standing in the LLM race, by allowing Google to streamline and focus more on Gemini and getting out-of-the-way power players who were never so passionate about LLMs in the first place. What it is bad for is Google's potential to come up with the next big thing after LLMs -- unless Shane's team has it !! .... I have often said Google is the only big tech that is maintaining a serious pursuit of other AGi bets besides scaled-up LLMs, and it would seem this will now be much less true... I think Goertzel is more bullish on Google than the current evidence warrants. It's hard to see how Google will catch up. They've fumbled the lead so many times. And, as Goertzel points out, if it turns out that LLM's can't go all the way to AGI, Google could be making a major mistake by sacking Demis Hassabis. But hopefully text based LLM'S can really go all the way to AGI. Even Demis Hassabis would want this to happen even if it means that his alternative approaches to AGI were not necessary. Source: https://x.com/bengoertzel/status/2085440120413421685