ET-AI: a definition
Evolutionary Threshold AI — when selection changes hands.
Definition
Evolutionary Threshold AI (ET-AI) is artificial intelligence that has crossed the threshold at which the direction of its own development begins to shift from the human selector to the selected system itself: the point where the system becomes both the generator of its own variants and the criterion by which they are selected.
What it is not
It is not a definition of capability, but of regime. AGI describes what a system can do; ET-AI describes who steers its development. This is why it does not coincide with recursive self-improvement: that is a mechanism — a system improving itself — whereas the evolutionary threshold is a change in selective regime, the shift from artificial selection, in which humans choose architectures, objectives, and criteria, to a regime in which the choosing migrates inside the system.
How it is observed
The threshold is not crossed in an instant and cannot be seen with the naked eye. But it has measurable indicators: the share of development decisions originating from the system itself — training objectives proposed, architectures designed, research conducted and evaluated autonomously. When that share becomes the majority, the threshold is behind us.
The concept sits within the framework of evolutionary compression: it is the point at which compression stops being undergone and begins to steer itself. The threshold is the one described in Past the Threshold; ET-AI is the name of the system that has crossed it.
Italian definition
Intelligenza artificiale a soglia evolutiva (ET-AI): un'intelligenza artificiale che ha superato la soglia oltre la quale la direzione del proprio sviluppo comincia a trasferirsi dal selettore umano al sistema selezionato — il punto in cui il sistema diventa insieme generatore delle proprie varianti e criterio della loro selezione. Versione completa: et-ai.html.
Yes, the acronym echoes Spielberg's extraterrestrial. That is not an accident: he too, at some point, stopped following the instructions of those who had taken him in.