Olivia Guest
Cognitive Scientist
Radboud University cognitive scientist and co-author of the “Reclaiming AI” proof, who argues we will run out of natural resources long before machine learning could ever reach artificial general intelligence.
In her words
There will never be enough computing power to create AGI using machine learning... because we’d run out of natural resources long before we’d even get close.
Biography
Olivia Guest is an assistant professor of cognitive computational science at Radboud University in the Netherlands, and an advocate for methodological rigour in a field she believes has been swept up in hype. Trained in both computer science and cognitive science, she works on the theory of what computational models can genuinely tell us about the mind.
The resource ceiling on AGI
Guest co-authored the 2024 paper “Reclaiming AI as a Theoretical Tool for Cognitive Science” with Iris van Rooij and colleagues, which formally argues that engineering human-like cognition is computationally intractable. Her particular emphasis is the physical bottom line: even setting aside the mathematics, the brute-force scaling that today’s AI relies on runs headlong into the planet’s finite energy and materials. Bigger models cannot simply be scaled to a mind.
Guest also writes about the sociology of the field — how incentives, funding and “AI hype” shape which claims get made and believed. She is a frequent voice for slowing down and demanding evidence rather than extrapolating from demos, a stance that puts her in conversation with critics like Emily M. Bender.
Where they stand in the war
Who backs them up
Sources & further reading
Canonical record: https://battlelines.ai/topic/olivia-guest