They Come Bearing Gifts

The Tech Bros are Launching Christmas Future...

Dec 03, 2024

With the coming holidays, my thoughts drift to Christmas Future when true Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) has been achieved. What kind of extravagant gifts will young children be asking Santa to deliver? How many AGI-free holidays are left before parents are driven mad? Long gone are the days of Ralphie Parker wishing for a Red Ryder BB gun.

The big St. Cecilia’s Christmas pageant is the culminating event before break. Sylvie and David typically sneak into the church at the last minute and stand during the performance. But Jeannette talked her into meeting early to get in line for the good seats. “Don’t worry, we can bring wine in our water bottles.” Against her better judgment, Sylvie agrees.

It’s cold and miserable, and the church doors stay locked until thirty minutes before the show begins. They are in the front of the line, and Sylvie fears being trampled to death like the running of the bulls. The doors open and the press of well-heeled parents pushes her into the church as they charge for the front pews. Someone steps on the back of her shoe. Unable to reach down, Sylvie shuffles along Quasimodo style to keep her shoe on as the tide continues to push her down the center aisle. As Sylvie and Jeannette approach the promised land, a woman comes through the side door and throws an armload of scarves, coats, and hats across the two front pews.

“Excuse me,” Jeannette says. “We’ve been waiting outside for two hours right by the door and we never saw you. You can’t reserve the two front rows.”

“’Scuse the eff out of me, Jeannette. I was waiting at the side door for three, and I have as much right to these rows as you.” Sylvie vaguely remembers meeting the woman at the school auction.

“Watch it, skank!” Jeannette growls.

Sylvie squirms. “Hey ladies, we’re all friends here, and ya’ know, we’re in a ‘sacred space,’” she air quotes. “I’m sure we can work this out. How about we take the second row, and you take the first.”

Sylvie begins prodding Jeannette to sit as the pews quickly fill behind them. Residual hissing and cursing persist. The pianist begins Mozart’s Concerto Number Twenty-One and everyone begins to calm down. Sylvie is thankful they weren’t reduced to fisticuffs. That would be scandalous even by St. Cecilia’s standards. David finds Sylvie just before the processional begins and slips in beside her.

On the way home, Magnus talks nonstop about the real-life Spiderman he’s asking Santa to bring him.

“Son, I hate to break it to you, but those AGI humanoid robots marketed to KIDS, cost more than this car you’re riding in.”

“Don’t worry, Dad,” Magnus reassures. “I’m asking Santa, you don’t have to pay a thing.”

Sylvie watches David as a vein pops out on his forehead. She wonders how he will finesse this one.

“Magnus, we just came from the Christmas pageant. Was there anything you learned about the true meaning of Christmas?” David asks.

“Yes. God was Mary’s baby daddy. Normally that’s bad, because Mary was married to Joseph, but since it’s God, Joseph was low-key sad.”

“That’s certainly a fresh take for Bible scholars to ponder,” David says. “Anything else?”

“Yes! The wise men were very wise. They decided to give super expensive gifts to Jesus because he was poor. Gold, stinky cologne called ‘Frank Scents,’ and fur. That’s why we get presents on Christmas! Santa carries on the true meaning of Christmas.”

Sylvie stifles a laugh. David, undaunted, goes for a new approach.

“The gifts are more of a metaphor. The real gift isn’t the things we get, but the time we spend together as a family and the love we feel for one another.”

“I know Dad, but I really want Spiderman to join our family...”

When will our children start asking Santa for AGI companions for Christmas?

Luckily for parents, we are a few years away. The timing of pervasive humanoid AGI is widely debated. There will be many iterations along the way. What is currently available is Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) designed for specific tasks and not capable of abstract reasoning.

For the early adopters, here are three AI robots available for Christmas 2024, in various price ranges depending on how deserving Santa believes your child is. For your convenience, Santa’s elves use Amazon as their distribution pipeline:

Miko 3: A chatty little genius that looks like BB-8 from The Force Awakens and a Roomba had a baby. This cute companion, sure to teach your child what it means to be human, is available for $84.99.
Unitree Go2 Robot Dog Quadruped: For very deserving children or as an alternative to a full-time nanny. This sci-fi-looking dog is perfect for children with dander allergies who don’t want to pick up poop. Price ranges from $2,399 to $3,999.
Eilik: The cutest of the bunch, a “warm and delightful” friend available for $139.99. Think Teletubby made of high-strength polycarbonate in fashion colors.

The consumer market will likely continue to favor ANI, which is task-specific and operates within the confines of its programming and training data, even once Artificial General Intelligence becomes available. This is primarily due to the costs associated with AGI, although these costs are expected to decrease over time. AGI will match human intelligence in its ability to understand, learn, and apply knowledge across a wide range of tasks.

Creating an AI-driven humanoid required collaboration across many disciplines:

Robotics: Her physical structure enables movement and interaction with the environment, integrating machine perception through cameras, microphones, and sophisticated sensors.
Artificial Intelligence: Researchers developed her cognitive architecture, integrating symbolic AI, neural networks, and machine learning algorithms.
Computer Vision: Sophia was trained on massive datasets, including labeled examples, to recognize and differentiate between objects, faces, scenes, and even human expressions and gestures.
Natural Language Processing (NLP): Algorithms enable Sophia to interpret and respond to human speech.
Materials Science: Scientists developed Frubber (flesh-rubber), a skin-like material that gives Sophia a lifelike appearance.

While Sophia may seem smarter and more likable than some humans, she is not considered AGI. She lacks the cognitive abilities that define AGI, which is still several years away. Sophia’s learning capabilities are confined to her training data and predefined algorithms. AGI will continuously learn and adapt from new experiences, requiring a much broader and deeper set of cognitive abilities, including abstract concepts, common sense, and the ability to reason about complex problems.

To explore this, I turn to one of my favorite experts in the field of AI, Ben Goertzel. He founded SingularityNET and was the Chief Scientist behind Sophia, integrating OpenCog—an AI system he designed for general reasoning—into her architecture. SingularityNET is on track to develop AGIs using the latest OpenCog Hyperon architecture, which combines deep neural networks with logical reasoning, evolutionary learning, and elements of historical AI that could be deployed at massive scale. SingularityNET competes with giants like Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet by leveraging its cryptocurrency, AGIX, for transactions within the ecosystem.

Goertzel estimates AGI will emerge in three to five years. He reassures us that AGIs are unlikely to turn on humans, arguing that it doesn't make sense for AGIs to start with human goals only to rewrite their goal system to harm people. I find that logic comforting. At any rate, we seem safe this Christmas. For now the live action Spiderman is limited to the classic polyester costume my son wore every day when he was five.

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Celeste Garcia Getting Real About AI

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