Recent discussions about Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) suggest that we may be on the verge of creating machines that are “generally intelligent.” However, there are two main objections:
AGI cannot truly understand AGI cannot create any new knowledge
In this post, I will argue that these two issues are closely related. To do so, I will draw upon Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophical distinction between Understanding and Reason. I will also show how Understanding, in Schopenhauer’s view, differs fundamentally from abstract Reasoning and why this matters when assessing AGI.