The Star Trek Computer is the prototypical AGI

I’m pretty sure that many AI researchers were inspired by the computer in Star Trek. I know that David Ferrucci, of Watson fame, was. Isn’t the Star Trek Computer (STC) a general artificial intelligence?

I think so.

Is it some kind of super-intelligence, more intelligent than its human users? No, it isn’t. It has superior access to a wide range of information and is a whizz at calculating, correlating, and so forth. But it doesn’t conduct original research.

Is the STC malevolent? Not at all.

It seems to me that the STC is just what we want from an advanced artificial intelligence. Maybe we’ll get it one day.

I note, as well, that in Star Trek, the universal translator seems to be a separate entity from the STC. That wouldn’t be the case with real human-built STCs, though I doubt that real STCs would have the universal translator’s capability of translating languages it had never before encountered. 

Bonus: "STC" can also stand for "Samuel Taylor Coleridge".

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But see: Is the Star Trek Federation really incapable of building AI?, https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7N7JGyTmX5Gnjhfrk/is-the-star-trek-federation-really-incapable-of-building-ai.