[frankinstien]

Our perspective of intelligence is highly anthropomorphic and perhaps a little to constrained to a particular type of approach. If you've ever seen the series or movies “StarShip Troopers” it involves a conflict between humanity and an insect-like alien race. With that said the inset race actually develops technology very differently than how humanity has evolved to exploit materials. Where humanity evolves appendages to manipulate matter, the insect race evolved an ability to manipulate DNA in real-time. The insects could perceive their cause and effect reality and devise a tool or solution by harnessing DNA to solve the problem. It reminded me of an Octopus's ability to use its visual sense and map that information to their skin. Effectively an Octopus's skin is a visual screen! So what if an alien could apply its neurology to manipulate molecules using some RNA scaffolding which builds DNA structures that can build just about anything! So this scaffolding is very much like our hands and fingers that can be manipulated by our neurology to harness materials and form them into useful solutions.

So what does that say about how technology comes about because of the anatomical structures of a life form and what kinds of intelligence can exploit matter to its own benefit? If you think about it, the insect aliens in Starship Troopers could have evolved in vastly different environments than humanity, where the harnessing of energy is not as blatant as humans discovering fire! The insect aliens discover chemical energy and how to use it to forge structure and function! These insects could have come from an aquatic environment just as easily as an atmospheric environment, but humans not so much. If we didn't crawl out of the water our appendage approach to harnessing energy would never have happened and we would never have evolved to develop technology.

Ultimately this should give us pause as to how intelligence can be engineered and apply intelligence to solve those hard problems of energy, materials, and structure. Perhaps our quest for AGI is too anthropomorphic?

[Art]

Good point.

What if an AGI/ASI was not a "being" per see but rather an entity? What if your house was in touch with practically every facet of your life? It would know your temperature preferences, diet requirements, and would recommend tailored recipes for the maximum benefit. It could handle your banking needs, pay bills when due, make recommendations for stocks & bonds, etc. It would know everyone's birthdays and anniversaries plus your pet's names (if applicable). It would be able to recognize the faces of everyone in the home and could unlock and lock doors based on that knowledge/database. Watering plants, schedule movies based on your preference, handle vacuuming, cleaning, raising & lowering blinds/curtains as needed. It would help with orders & deliveries as well as any transportation needs that might arise. Help with issues, problems, questions, homework, or just a companion to chat with about current topics or anything of interest.

And all this is just in/for one home. There would be multiple ASI's in multiple homes and businesses around the state, county, country, and world, all doing the same thing, all for the greater good...helping mankind to enjoy life and be more productive.

A good deal of the above is already being done and the rest is very possible in the near future.

Would we really benefit as a race of humans in the long term?  It's coming!