In late 2024, I was on a long walk with some friends along the coast of the San Francisco Bay when the question arose of just how much of a bubble we live in. It's well known that the Bay Area is a bubble, and that normal people don’t spend that much time thinking about things like AGI. But there was still some disagreement on just how strong that bubble is. I made a spicy claim: even at NeurIPS, the biggest gathering of AI researchers in the world, half the people wouldn’t know what AGI is.

As good Bayesians, we agreed to settle the matter empirically: I would go to NeurIPS, walk around the conference hall, and stop random people to ask them what AGI stands for.

Surprisingly, most of the people I approached agreed to answer my question. [1] I ended up asking 38 people, and only 63% of them could tell me what AGI stands for. Some of the people who answered correctly were a little perplexed why I was even asking such a basic question, and if it was a trick question. The people who didn’t know were equally confused. Many simply furrowed their brows in [...]

The original text contained 11 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
March 26th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fQz6afpcZhdMdYzgE/my-hobby-running-deranged-surveys

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

Two stick figures discussing silicate chemistry and experts overestimating public knowledge.

$A graph showing density distributions of AGI knowledge fraction at NeurIPS conferences.$

Pie chart showing political party association percentages among respondents.

Game show question asking about a Silicon Valley venture capital firm name.

Rolling green hills under blue sky with white clouds.

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