Entry 17 of 44
General (as in AGI)
generalis — relating to all, universal; genus (kind, type, class)
Latin
From Latin generalis: of or belonging to all, universal. Root concept: applies across all instances of a category without restriction to particular cases.
Established meaning
Applying universally, not restricted to particular cases. 'General' intelligence would imply competence across arbitrary cognitive tasks without domain-specific training — genuine universality of application.
AI industry deployment
'AGI' is claimed or declared by developers on various disputed criteria. Some definitions require only human-level performance on economic tasks. Others require broad cognitive ability. The term is used to mark competitive milestones, not to describe a philosophically settled category.
Semantic gap
Universality
A system that performs well across a large but finite set of benchmark tasks is not thereby general in any rigorous sense. Claiming AGI achievement converts a contested technical milestone into a categorical statement whose consequences are then used to drive policy, investment, and legal arguments.