There is a robust debate in the computing industry about how to create AGI and whether it can be created at all.

Judge as of March 2023. TRUE: computing and AI researchers, companies and commentators were then publicly disagreeing both about how to build artificial general intelligence (for example scaling large language models versus other approaches) and about whether AGI is achievable at all. MOSTLY TRUE: a lively debate existed, but mainly about one of the two points (approach, or feasibility), with the other discussed less. MIXED: debate existed only in narrow circles and was not widespread in the industry. MOSTLY FALSE: there was broad consensus on one of the two points, with only marginal dissent. FALSE: there was consensus on both how AGI would be built and that it can be built, with no real debate.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Artificial general intelligence - Wikipedia Wikipedia

   “As of 2023, the development and potential achievement of AGI remains a subject of intense debate within the AI community. While traditional consensus held that AGI was a distant goal, recent advancements have led some researchers and industry figures to claim that early forms of AGI may already exist.”

2. E2 Artificial general intelligence - Wikipedia Wikipedia

   “An additional challenge is the lack of clarity in defining what intelligence entails. Questions regarding consciousness, goal-setting, emotional capabilities, reasoning and brain replication remain contested within the broader research community, as does whether intelligence emerges as a consequence of scale.”

3. E3 Artificial general intelligence - Wikipedia Wikipedia · 2023

   “In 2023, Microsoft researchers published a detailed evaluation of GPT-4. They concluded: "Given the breadth and depth of GPT-4's capabilities, we believe that it could reasonably be viewed as an early (yet still incomplete) version of an artificial general intelligence (AGI) system."”

4. E4 Artificial general intelligence - Wikipedia Wikipedia · 2023

   “"But most people thought it was way off. And I thought it was way off. I thought it was 30 to 50 years or even longer away. Obviously, I no longer think that."”

E1 states that as of 2023 whether AGI can be developed or achieved was 'a subject of intense debate within the AI community', and E3 records Microsoft researchers' 2023 view that GPT-4 was an early form of AGI, which conflicts with other views. E2 says it is contested whether intelligence emerges from scale, which is a dispute about how to build AGI, but that passage is undated. The dated evidence comes from a single encyclopedia page and centres on feasibility, so the debate over approach is less firmly shown for March 2023.