Artificial general intelligence (AGI), or strong AI—that is, artificial intelligence that aims to duplicate human intellectual abilities—remains controversial and out of reach. The difficulty of scaling up AI’s modest achievements cannot be overstated.

However, this lack of progress may simply be testimony to the difficulty of AGI, not to its impossibility. Can a computer possibly think? Theoretical linguists suggest that debating this question is pointless, as it’s essentially arbitrary whether to extend the common usage of the word think to machines. Chomsky claims there’s no factual question as to whether such decisions are right or wrong—just as there’s no question over saying that airplanes fly or not saying that ships swim. However, this view may oversimplify the matter the debate over AI and intelligence continues, raising fundamental questions about true understanding and cognitive ability in machines.

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