In the former case (charlatanism), it's basically marketing. Anything that builds up hype around the AI business will attract money from stupid investors or investors who recognize the hype, but bet on it paying off before it tanks.
In the latter case (incompetence), many people honestly don't know what it means to know something. They spend their entire lives this way. They honestly think that words like "emergence" bless intellectually vacuous and uninformed fascinations with the aura of Science!™. These kinds of people lack a true grasp of even basic notions like "language", an analysis of which already demonstrates the silliness of AI-as-intelligence.
Now, that doesn't mean that in the course of foolish pursuit, some useful or good things might not fall out as a side effect. That's no reason to pursue foolish things, but the point is that the presence of some accidental good fruits doesn't prove the legitimacy of the whole. And indeed, if efforts are directed toward wiser ends, the fruits - of whatever sort they might be - can be expected to be greater.
Talk of AGI is, frankly, just annoying and dumb, at least when it is used to mean bona fide intelligence or "superintelligence". Just hold your nose and take whatever gold there is in Egypt.
In the former case (charlatanism), it's basically marketing. Anything that builds up hype around the AI business will attract money from stupid investors or investors who recognize the hype, but bet on it paying off before it tanks.
In the latter case (incompetence), many people honestly don't know what it means to know something. They spend their entire lives this way. They honestly think that words like "emergence" bless intellectually vacuous and uninformed fascinations with the aura of Science!™. These kinds of people lack a true grasp of even basic notions like "language", an analysis of which already demonstrates the silliness of AI-as-intelligence.
Now, that doesn't mean that in the course of foolish pursuit, some useful or good things might not fall out as a side effect. That's no reason to pursue foolish things, but the point is that the presence of some accidental good fruits doesn't prove the legitimacy of the whole. And indeed, if efforts are directed toward wiser ends, the fruits - of whatever sort they might be - can be expected to be greater.
Talk of AGI is, frankly, just annoying and dumb, at least when it is used to mean bona fide intelligence or "superintelligence". Just hold your nose and take whatever gold there is in Egypt.