Position: Stop Treating ‘AGI’ as the North-Star Goal of AI Research

Borhane Blili-Hamelin, Christopher Graziul, Leif Hancox-Li, Hananel Hazan, El-Mahdi El-Mhamdi, Avijit Ghosh, Katherine A Heller, Jacob Metcalf, Fabricio Murai, Eryk Salvaggio, Andrew J Smart, Todd Snider, Mariame Tighanimine, Talia Ringer, Margaret Mitchell, Shiri Dori-Hacohen

ICML 2025 pp. 81090-81117

/icml/2025/blilihamelin2025icml-position/

Abstract

The AI research community plays a vital role in shaping the scientific, engineering, and societal goals of AI research. In this position paper, we argue that focusing on the highly contested topic of ’artificial general intelligence’ (’AGI’) undermines our ability to choose effective goals. We identify six key traps—obstacles to productive goal setting—that are aggravated by AGI discourse: Illusion of Consensus, Supercharging Bad Science, Presuming Value-Neutrality, Goal Lottery, Generality Debt, and Normalized Exclusion. To avoid these traps, we argue that the AI research community needs to (1) prioritize specificity in scientific, engineering, and societal goals, (2) center pluralism about multiple worthwhile approaches to multiple valuable goals, and (3) foster innovation through greater inclusion of disciplines and communities. Therefore, the AI research community needs to stop treating “AGI” as the north-star goal of AI research.

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Cite

Text

Blili-Hamelin et al. "Position: Stop Treating ‘AGI’ as the North-Star Goal of AI Research." Proceedings of the 42nd International Conference on Machine Learning, 2025.

Markdown

[Blili-Hamelin et al. "Position: Stop Treating ‘AGI’ as the North-Star Goal of AI Research." Proceedings of the 42nd International Conference on Machine Learning, 2025.](https://mlanthology.org/icml/2025/blilihamelin2025icml-position/)

BibTeX

@inproceedings{blilihamelin2025icml-position,
  title     = {{Position: Stop Treating ‘AGI’ as the North-Star Goal of AI Research}},
  author    = {Blili-Hamelin, Borhane and Graziul, Christopher and Hancox-Li, Leif and Hazan, Hananel and El-Mhamdi, El-Mahdi and Ghosh, Avijit and Heller, Katherine A and Metcalf, Jacob and Murai, Fabricio and Salvaggio, Eryk and Smart, Andrew J and Snider, Todd and Tighanimine, Mariame and Ringer, Talia and Mitchell, Margaret and Dori-Hacohen, Shiri},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 42nd International Conference on Machine Learning},
  year      = {2025},
  pages     = {81090-81117},
  volume    = {267},
  url       = {https://mlanthology.org/icml/2025/blilihamelin2025icml-position/}
}