One reason that a fully general AGI might be more profitable than specialised AIs, despite obvious gains-from-specialisation, is if profitability depends on insight-production. For humans, it’s easier to understand a particular thing the more other things you understand. One of the main ways you make novel intellectual progress is by combining remote associations from models about different things. Insight-ability for a particular novel task grows with the number of good models you have available to draw connections between.
But, it could still be that the gains from increased generalisation for a particular model grows too slowly and can’t compete with obvious gains from specialised AIs.
One reason that a fully general AGI might be more profitable than specialised AIs, despite obvious gains-from-specialisation, is if profitability depends on insight-production. For humans, it’s easier to understand a particular thing the more other things you understand. One of the main ways you make novel intellectual progress is by combining remote associations from models about different things. Insight-ability for a particular novel task grows with the number of good models you have available to draw connections between.
But, it could still be that the gains from increased generalisation for a particular model grows too slowly and can’t compete with obvious gains from specialised AIs.