Most people didn't think we were anywhere close to LLM's five years ago. The capabilities we have now were expected to be a decades away, depending on who you talked to. [EDIT: sorry, I should have said 10 years ago... recent years get too compressed in my head and stuff from 2020 still feels like it was 2 years ago!]
So I think a lot of people now don't see what the path is to AGI, but also realize they hadn't seen the path to LLM's, and innovation is coming fast and furious. So the most honest answer seems to be, it's entirely plausible that AGI just depends on another couple conceptual breakthroughs that are imminent... and it's also entirely plausible that AGI will require 20 different conceptual breakthroughs all working together that we'll only figure out decades from now.
True honesty requires acknowledging that we truly have no idea. Progress in AI is happening faster than ever before, but nobody has the slightest idea how much progress is needed to get to AGI.
So I think a lot of people now don't see what the path is to AGI, but also realize they hadn't seen the path to LLM's, and innovation is coming fast and furious. So the most honest answer seems to be, it's entirely plausible that AGI just depends on another couple conceptual breakthroughs that are imminent... and it's also entirely plausible that AGI will require 20 different conceptual breakthroughs all working together that we'll only figure out decades from now.
True honesty requires acknowledging that we truly have no idea. Progress in AI is happening faster than ever before, but nobody has the slightest idea how much progress is needed to get to AGI.