To begin with, let us state the 1% problem, for machine translation: it seems some 99% accuracy in machine translation could be attainable but the remaining 1% (1% is just a given number, somewhat arbitrarily chosen, but useful to to fix ideas) may be hard of even very hard to reach. Now a question arises: is some progress on the remaining 1% problem attainable without general-purpose AI. Prima facie, the answer is no. For it seems that progress on the remaining 1% problem requires, for example, some abilities such as being able to find the translation of a given word on external databases. For it will occur sometimes that the 1% untranslated will be due to the presence of a new word, for instance very recently created, and thus lacking in the MT internal dictionary. In order to find the relevant translated word, the machine should be able to search and find it on external databases (say, the web), just as a human would do. So, solving the remaining 1% problem requires – among other capabilities – any such ability which is part of a general-purpose AI.

Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is prima facie a somewhat abstract notion, that needs to be refined and made more explicit. Problems encountered in implementing machine translation systems can help make this notion more accurate and concrete. The ability to find the translation of a given word on external databases is just one of the required abilities needed to solve the remaining 1% problem. So we shall mention some other abilities of the same type later.