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What Gary Marcus thinks about AGI

@gary-marcus · 10 positions · 0 changes of mind

Cognitive scientist, professor emeritus of psychology and neural science at NYU, and the most persistent public critic of large language models. Author of The Algebraic Mind and Rebooting AI; writes the Marcus on AI newsletter.

Gary Marcus did not write this page.

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3 dated positions, 2025, in their own words. Our reading of what Gary Marcus has said — not written or endorsed by them.

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  1. Our readingAGI worth the name would combine human adaptiveness with machine reliability, not reproduce human performance including human failures.

    Their wordsThe vision of AGI I have always had is one that combines the strengths of humans with the strength of machines, overcoming the weaknesses of humans.

    ↗A knockout blow for LLMs?garymarcus.substack.com 2nd of 6 in this piece

    Interesting

  3. Our readingA language model is no substitute for a well-specified conventional algorithm, so it cannot simply be dropped into a complex problem and trusted.

    Their wordsWhat the Apple paper shows, most fundamentally, regardless of how you define AGI, is that LLMs are no substitute for good well-specified conventional algorithms.

    ↗A knockout blow for LLMs?garymarcus.substack.com 3rd of 6 in this piece

    LLMsApple

    Interesting

  5. Our readingAnyone who thinks large language models are a direct route to transformative AGI is kidding themselves.

    Their wordsBut anybody who thinks LLMs are a direct route to the sort AGI that could fundamentally transform society for the good is kidding themselves.

    ↗A knockout blow for LLMs?garymarcus.substack.com 5th of 6 in this piece

    LLMs

    Interesting