Log inStart free
← Back to catalog

The future of AI and AGI: an overview

Where AI is heading, what AGI is, future risks and opportunities.

Updated: 23 July 2026Editor: Skilvy editorial

20 lessons · 8 h read · 2 free · 4 AI-graded projects

About this course

This course is about making sense of claims about the future of AI and AGI without becoming either a doomsayer or an unconditional optimist. It isn't a course of predictions — it gives you a framework for evaluating other people's forecasts and scenarios, not a ready-made answer about what will happen.

The course moves from a checklist for parsing a headline claim and competing definitions of AGI through sources of capability growth and development scenarios — smooth, stepwise, stalled — to changes in labor and personal strategy. Projects work with real material: dissect one public claim about approaching AGI using a structured card, map out changes to your own profession over the next two to three years, and write a final position paper on a contested AI question.

Built for anyone who wants to think clearly about AI and AGI without a specialized technical background — basic familiarity with what AI is is enough. It's not for you if you're looking for a precise date when AGI will arrive: the course deliberately avoids predictions in favor of a method for evaluating them.

What you'll learn

  • Break down a headline AI claim using a verification checklist
  • Tell a capability demo apart from a reproducible result
  • Compare competing definitions of AGI and what each would take to prove
  • Assess sources of AI capability growth and their limiting factors
  • Build development scenarios instead of a single forecast
  • Judge which parts of a job get automated first, and why
  • Distinguish different categories of AI risk instead of lumping them together
  • Put together a personal strategy that accounts for genuine uncertainty

What you'll end up with

  • A dissection of one public AGI claim using your own structured card
  • A map of changes to your profession over the next two to three years
  • A written personal position on a contested AI question — a working framework, not a forecast
  • A certificate on paid plans

Not for you if you're looking for a precise prediction of when AGI will arrive rather than a method for evaluating such claims.

Course program

Module 1 · How to read claims about the future of AI
1Why technology forecasts fail in both directionsFree2A checklist for unpacking a loud claimFree3Demonstration versus reproducible result4Definitions that make arguments pointless
Module 2 · What AGI means and why there is no agreementproject
5Different definitions of AGI and what each one demands you prove6Capability versus understanding: what the argument is really about7Measuring progress: benchmarks, their saturation and how they get gamed8Why model leaderboards transfer badly to real work
Module 3 · How the technology might developproject
9Sources of capability growth and their bottlenecks10Development scenarios: smooth, stepwise, stagnant11Constraints: data, compute, energy, money, people12What a halt in progress would mean
Module 4 · Work, the economy, societyproject
13Which parts of a job get automated first, and why14Historical analogies and their limits15Unequal access and the concentration of capability16How to assess claims that occupations will disappear
Module 5 · Risks, governance, personal strategyproject
17Types of risk and why they get confused18Who decides how the technology develops, and how19Indicators worth following personally20Personal strategy: skills that go out of date slowly
$39
one-time purchase · lifetime access
Or included in Pro
Start freeGet a subscription
Practical projects
0 / 4 passed
Certificate progress →

What's included

  • Lifetime access
  • Tasks and quizzes
  • Certificate — on a paid plan
  • Updates forever