The California Institute for Human Science has launched a new Master of Science in Artificial General Intelligence, the world’s first accredited graduate degree program dedicated specifically to Artificial General Intelligence.

The program arrives at a defining moment. Artificial intelligence is already reshaping education, research, business, healthcare, creativity, governance, and everyday life. But the next frontier is not merely more powerful narrow AI. It is the possibility of artificial systems capable of general reasoning, adaptive learning, cross-domain intelligence, self-improvement, and forms of agency that challenge inherited assumptions about mind, cognition, and responsibility.

For CIHS, these questions are not peripheral. They sit at the center of the Institute’s mission to bring science, consciousness, psychology, technology, ethics, and human development into deeper dialogue.

The new M.S. in Artificial General Intelligence is designed for students who want to engage AGI not only as a technical challenge, but as one of the defining human questions of the 21st century.

What Would It Take to Build a Mind?

Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI, refers to the ambition of developing artificial systems with capacities closer to the full range of human cognition: reasoning across domains, learning from limited experience, forming goals, adapting to unfamiliar situations, and acting intelligently in complex environments.

This is a fundamentally different ambition from the narrow AI systems that currently dominate public attention. Narrow AI can perform specific tasks with extraordinary power. AGI asks a deeper question: what would it take to build a mind?

That question cannot be answered by engineering alone. It also requires neuroscience, cognitive science, philosophy of mind, ethics, psychology, information theory, embodiment, systems thinking, and serious inquiry into consciousness.

The CIHS program was developed from this larger perspective. It recognizes that AGI is not only about making machines more capable. It is about understanding intelligence itself — biological, artificial, embodied, cognitive, ethical, and potentially conscious.

A Program at the Intersection of AI and Human Science

Most AI programs train students in technical tools, data systems, machine learning, and computational methods. These skills matter. But CIHS’s M.S. in Artificial General Intelligence is built around a broader claim: the future of AGI will require researchers and builders who can hold technical, philosophical, psychological, and ethical questions together.

Students in the program explore foundations of artificial intelligence and AGI, neural and symbolic architectures, cognitive science, neuroscience, information theory, cognitive dynamics, embodied robotics, quantum computing, alignment, ethics, and the societal impacts of advanced AI systems.

The program also draws on CIHS’s longstanding strengths in consciousness studies, psychology, human development, and mind-body-spirit inquiry. Students engage theories of mind, motivation, and consciousness not as abstract curiosities, but as frameworks for thinking about what intelligence is, how it develops, and how it might be responsibly designed.

This interdisciplinary approach is central to the program’s identity. CIHS is not treating AGI as a purely technical race. It is treating AGI as a profound human, scientific, ethical, and civilizational question.

Led by Gabriel Axel Montes, Ph.D.

The program is led by Gabriel Axel Montes, Ph.D., founding Program Director for Artificial General Intelligence at CIHS. Dr. Montes is a neuroscientist, computer scientist, entrepreneur, and cognitive science and AI researcher whose work spans consciousness, AI behavior and alignment, complex systems, cognition, and global security.

His cross-disciplinary background reflects the purpose of the program itself: to bring together the technical study of machine intelligence with deeper inquiry into consciousness, cognition, integrity, and the conditions under which minds — biological or artificial — remain coherent, adaptive, and ethically oriented.

Under his direction, the M.S. in Artificial General Intelligence is designed to give students a rigorous graduate-level environment in which to examine the most important questions now emerging around AGI: What is intelligence? What is generality? What is agency? Can machines become conscious? What kinds of architectures could support flexible cognition? How should self-improving systems be governed? And what responsibilities do human beings carry when building technologies that may transform the future of civilization?

Beyond Narrow AI

The public conversation around AI is often dominated by tools: chatbots, image generators, copilots, automation platforms, and large language models. These systems are powerful, but they are still generally understood as narrow AI systems — tools trained to perform particular classes of tasks.

AGI represents a broader horizon.

A genuinely general artificial intelligence would not simply complete prompts or optimize isolated tasks. It would be capable of transferring knowledge across domains, learning with flexibility, integrating context, adapting to unfamiliar conditions, and perhaps developing internal models of goals, motivation, action, and self-correction.

Whether such systems can be built, how soon they may emerge, and whether they could ever be conscious remain open questions. But these questions are already shaping research agendas, investment decisions, public policy, global competition, and ethical debate.

CIHS’s AGI program gives students a structured way to engage those questions before they become settled into someone else’s assumptions.

Consciousness, Ethics, and Responsible Innovation

Because CIHS has long been committed to consciousness studies, psychology, subtle energy research, and integrative human development, the Institute brings a distinctive perspective to AGI education.

At CIHS, the question of AGI is not simply “Can we build it?” It is also:

• What kind of intelligence are we building?
• What assumptions about mind and consciousness are built into our systems?
• How do motivation, emotion, embodiment, and context shape cognition?
• Can advanced AI be aligned with human flourishing?
• What ethical responsibilities arise when creating systems that may act autonomously or improve themselves?
• How should students, researchers, policymakers, and builders respond to technologies that could reshape the future of human society?

The program’s emphasis on ethics, alignment, consciousness, and responsible innovation reflects CIHS’s belief that technical capacity must be joined with philosophical seriousness and moral imagination.

A Graduate Program for an Emerging Field

The M.S. in Artificial General Intelligence is offered online, allowing students to participate from across the United States and internationally while remaining connected to CIHS’s graduate community and research-informed academic environment.

The curriculum culminates in original research, including a thesis-level final project, public presentation, and peer review. Students are expected to engage deeply with the field, not merely consume information about it. The program is designed for those who want to think, build, research, write, question, and contribute to the emerging future of AGI.

Prospective students may come from computer science, engineering, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, cognitive science, consciousness studies, ethics, policy, education, or related interdisciplinary backgrounds. What they share is a desire to understand AGI at its deepest levels: technical, cognitive, ethical, and human.

Why CIHS?

CIHS is an accredited nonprofit graduate university and research center located in Encinitas, California. Since its founding, the Institute has explored frontier questions at the intersection of science, consciousness, health, psychology, spirituality, and human development.

The launch of the M.S. in Artificial General Intelligence is a natural extension of that mission.

AGI may become one of the most consequential fields of the 21st century. It raises questions about intelligence, consciousness, ethics, technology, governance, human identity, and the future of society. These are exactly the kinds of defining issues CIHS exists to investigate.

By launching the world’s first accredited graduate degree program dedicated specifically to Artificial General Intelligence, CIHS is staking a clear claim: the future of AI must include the human sciences. It must include consciousness. It must include ethics. It must include rigorous inquiry into what intelligence is and what it means to build systems that may someday act, learn, reason, and transform the world in ways we are only beginning to understand.

Learn More

Applications are now open for the M.S. in Artificial General Intelligence at CIHS.

Students interested in AI, cognition, consciousness, ethics, AGI safety, and responsible innovation are invited to explore the program, review the curriculum, and connect with admissions.