Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) has been elusive for decades, while narrow AI has been extremely successful. Which raises the question: Is Biological General Intelligence really General Intelligence?

It's remarkable. I know my brother's phone number by heart, but I can only type it on a phone. Surely you experienced that too. Even stopping to type it on a phone to try to retrieve it from memory does not retrieve it as well when 'faking' it, when you're not really trying to dial it. Just looking at the dialpad is not enough. This speaks to the specificity, context-sensitivity and subawareness of motor memories. Our brain evolved to do what we do often. That some general-purpose skills evolved is remarkable, for most biological skills are very specific.

More Science articles by Dr. Bäcker.