AGI is vaguely defined as computer systems capable of human-level intellect.

Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang sat down with Lex Fridman for a podcast yesterday (23 March), where he claimed that artificial generative intelligence (AGI) has been achieved.

When asked by Fridman for a timeline for reaching AGI, Haung responded: “Now. I think we’ve achieved AGI.”

He further claimed that it is “possible” that a company could be run by the advanced AI system. Explaining his rationale behind the statement, Huang argued that many users in China already deploy their personal agents created by OpenClaw (called Claws) to “go out and look for jobs” and “do work, make money”.

OpenClaw is backed by OpenAI which recently hired its founder Peter Steinberger to help build the “next generation” of personal AI agents.

However, the Nvidia chief stopped short of saying that such agents could build his company. “A lot of people use it for a couple of months and it kind of dies away. Now, the odds of 100,000 of those agents building Nvidia is zero percent.”

The exact definition of AGI is difficult to pin down, adding to the vagueness around claims of reaching it. According to Google, AGI refers to the hypothetical intelligence of a machine that allows it to “understand” or “learn” intellectual tasks that humans can. IBM calls it the “abstract goal of AI development”, where human intelligence can be replicated by machines or software.

Plus, there’s many claims of what could happen once AGI is achieved, from a dramatic disruption of labour and even bigger concentration of wealth, to newer advances in research and technology.

And admittedly, the multitrillion-dollar Nvidia has huge stakes in the AI race, being a major provider of AI chips and infrastructure to companies worldwide. In January, Huang told the audience at Davos that AI is becoming the foundation of the “largest infrastructure buildout in human history”.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told Forbes last month that they have “basically built AGI, or very close to it”. His company, he said, is “110pc” focused its core mission of AGI.

Meanwhile, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella contradicted Altman’s claim and said that we are nowhere close to AGI. And Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says the number is more likely between one and three years.

For now, OpenAI’s AGI claim – if made official – will need to be verified by an independent expert panel first.

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.