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California Institute for Human Science

Artificial General Intelligence at CIHS

A new academic home for artificial general intelligence.

Offering the world’s first accredited M.S. in Artificial General Intelligence, CIHS’s AGI Department is where technical rigor meets the study of mind, consciousness, ethics, and responsible development.

AGI is not only a technical frontier. It raises profound questions about intelligence and consciousness itself: how minds learn, reason, adapt, and act, and what responsibilities arise as increasingly capable artificial systems enter human life and civilization.

The AGI Question

The world’s first accredited AGI program begins with intelligence itself.

Artificial General Intelligence is not simply a more powerful form of narrow AI. It concerns systems that may reason across domains, learn from limited experience, adapt to unfamiliar situations, form goals, and act with increasing autonomy.

CIHS launched the M.S. in Artificial General Intelligence because AGI is not only a technical challenge. It is one of the defining questions of the 21st century: what intelligence is, how minds and artificial systems can be understood, whether consciousness matters for the future of AI, and how increasingly capable systems should be designed in relation to human life, ethics, governance, and civilization.

The CIHS Approach

Three frontiers of AGI at CIHS.

Most AI programs focus primarily on tools, models, data systems, or applied machine learning. CIHS approaches AGI through a broader framework: technical rigor joined with the study of mind, consciousness, ethics, safety, and responsible development.

Technical AGI Systems

Students engage the architectures and methods that may support adaptive, generalizable intelligence: cognitive architectures, neuro-symbolic systems, agentic systems, knowledge representation, evolutionary learning, embodied intelligence, self-improving systems, and future intelligence architectures. The emphasis is not simply on using AI tools, but on understanding how intelligent systems are built, evaluated, and responsibly advanced.

Mind, Cognition & Consciousness

AGI cannot be reduced to engineering alone. CIHS brings cognitive science, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, consciousness studies, embodiment, attention, motivation, and theories of intelligence into the center of AGI education. Students examine human consciousness and artificial minds together, asking what the study of mind can contribute to the future of machine intelligence.

Ethics, Safety & Civilization

As artificial systems become more capable, technical development must be joined with responsibility. CIHS foregrounds AGI safety, value alignment, governance, human-AI coexistence, social impact, and the ethical responsibilities of building technologies that may reshape education, work, health, creativity, public life, and the future of civilization.

Meet the Department Chair

Led by Gabriel Axel Montes, Ph.D.

The AGI Department is guided by a scholar and builder whose work spans neuroscience, cognitive science, consciousness, AI behavior and alignment, complex systems, governance, and the future of machine intelligence.

Gabriel Axel Montes, Ph.D.

Gabriel Axel Montes, Ph.D.

Department Chair, Artificial General Intelligence
Founding Program Director, M.S. in Artificial General Intelligence

Dr. Montes brings together neuroscience, AI research, consciousness studies, complex systems, and applied technology development. His work centers on cognitive integrity: what it takes for minds, AI systems, institutions, and societies to remain coherent and adaptive through profound change.

Neuroscience & Consciousness Research across selfhood, agency, embodiment, consciousness, neurophenomenology, and mind-body approaches.
AI, Alignment & AGI Work spanning AI behavior, alignment, cognitive architectures, synthetic consciousness, governance, and AGI ethics.
Technology & Civilization Experience translating deep-tech ideas into products, ventures, research programs, and public conversations about the future.

Meet the AGI Faculty

Learn more about the scholars, builders, researchers, and practitioners guiding students in Artificial General Intelligence at CIHS.

View Faculty

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