www.lesswrong.com/posts/9RL9MuGZjzm4q3gKG/what-just-happened-a-retrospective-of-...
1 correction found
Shane Legg, who coined the term AGI
Legg helped popularize the term “AGI,” but available sources say it was used earlier by Mark Gubrud in 1997.
Full reasoning
Multiple sources contradict the claim that Shane Legg coined the term AGI.
- TIME says: “The term AGI was first used by the physicist Mark Gubrud in 1997, but in 2002 Shane Legg independently came up with the phrase, and popularized it with his former boss, Ben Goertzel.” That means Legg was an important popularizer/reintroducer, not the first person to coin or use the term.
- Ben Goertzel’s own account says that when he was choosing a title for his book, “Shane Legg proposed ‘Artificial General Intelligence.’” But Goertzel immediately adds: “Later I found that a guy named Mark Gubrud had used the term before.”
- WIRED likewise reports that Gubrud used “artificial general intelligence” in a 1997 paper and quotes Legg later acknowledging: “I kind of reinvented the term.”
So the precise historical claim here is wrong. A more accurate wording would be that Shane Legg helped popularize or independently reintroduce the term AGI, rather than being the person who first coined it.
3 sources
- Shane Legg: The 100 Most Influential People in AI 2023
“The term AGI was first used by the physicist Mark Gubrud in 1997, but in 2002 Shane Legg independently came up with the phrase, and popularized it with his former boss, Ben Goertzel.”
- Ben Goertzel on AGI as a Field
“Shane Legg proposed ‘Artificial General Intelligence.’ ... Later I found that a guy named Mark Gubrud had used the term before.”
- The Man Who Invented AGI
WIRED reports that Mark Gubrud used “artificial general intelligence” in a 1997 paper; Legg is quoted saying that after learning this, “I kind of reinvented the term.”