Remember November 2023? That seemed to be a tumultuous time for OpenAI. Co-founder Samuel Altman was abruptly fired over Google Meet, joined Microsoft and, then, returned to OpenAI again. Then, he fired most of the OpenAI Board that had fired him. But, just before Altman was fired, something happened.
A group of staff researchers were said to have sent a letter to the OpenAI Board. The letter was said to be about warning it about a new AI algorithm that could pose a threat to humanity. There was said to be a mysterious endeavour called Project Q* (pronounced Q-Star.) Some members believed that Project Q* could be a significant breakthrough in the pursuit of AGI, which is Artificial General Intelligence. This is a system that isn't good at one specific thing, but one that could do a wide range of things better than people. Some systems are good at something, but not everything. A smartphone could be great at understanding voice commands. But, it may not know how to learn a new language without specific programming.
AGI could create machines that aren't narrowly focused, but could understand, learn and do many things. Much like a human being. It could be a system that could learn things on its own, understand people's needs better over time and adapt to situations without needing specific instructions for each scenario. The idea of AGI is said to be building machines that have the kind of intelligence people have.
