How close are we actually to having AGI? Some people are convinced it's coming within 10 years, whilst others are saying much longer. I guess no one really knows.

I think (and I’m not the only one) that it’s one of those emergent properties for which we lack the “recipe” for today, but which we will stumble upon serendipitously one day. Thus it’s unpredictable in that sense.

David Deutsch uses the analogy of great apes — we’re genetically extremely similar to them, and yet a world apart in terms of capabilities. There’s a fine line that can take a very long time to cross, but when it finally happens, it’s all at once

It feels similar to alchemical promises that eventually we would be able to form gold out of the "elements". I suppose if we have AGI we will probably have the ability to program a lot of base elements through synthetics. It's really hard for me to imagine a world with AGI.