You don't need to prove anything about an AGI system if you can prove things about its I/O capabilities. I recognize that proving things about machine learning models is very hard, I tried to do some research in that area and got practically no where.
And I think you and I have very different definitions of Rigorous. Like I said, unless you'd take Wilbur Wright's thoughts on a mars mission seriously, I don't think you should give much thought to Geoff Hinton's thoughts about when we'll get AGI, and I say that having enormous respect for him and his achievements. (and using him as a simple example)
Its pseudoscience. We're notoriously bad about predicting the future. I don't see any reason to trust people going on about the dangers of AGI any more than the futurologists of my parents generation, who predicted flying cars and interstellar travel, but missed smartphones.
Perhaps, but if the alternative is either incredible fear of the technology, or the technology potentially killing humanity, then "making great strides in a select few fields" seems quite good.
I really, really don't think modern AI capabilities and AGI are as dissimilar as airplanes and rockets. Neither do many AI researchers. You're obviously welcome to disagree, but you don't just get to declare their opinions invalid because you think they're out of their depth.
This is also true. You see all of these things like Hawking and Musk talking about the AI Apocalypse (when they aren't even experts in the field), and it gets people scared when, at this point, there's very little reason to be.
On the other hand, I don't actually know Hinton's opinion on these things, and he might agree with me (in which case, you absolutely should listen to him!). But instead the loudest voices are perhaps the most ridiculous.
That said, I do think that if I asked you to make a bet with me on when we would approach with even 50% confidence, your error bars would be on the order of a century.
And I think you and I have very different definitions of Rigorous. Like I said, unless you'd take Wilbur Wright's thoughts on a mars mission seriously, I don't think you should give much thought to Geoff Hinton's thoughts about when we'll get AGI, and I say that having enormous respect for him and his achievements. (and using him as a simple example)
Its pseudoscience. We're notoriously bad about predicting the future. I don't see any reason to trust people going on about the dangers of AGI any more than the futurologists of my parents generation, who predicted flying cars and interstellar travel, but missed smartphones.