Brad wrote: > > I see your point, but I'm not so sure you're correct. > > If you're devoting resources specifically to getting some attention, you > may indeed speed up the process. I wish you luck.
Well, I'm not devoting resources to getting widespread attention for AGI right now -- because the time is not right. The time to devote resources to getting widespread attention for AGI will be after the baby mind is done being engineered and we've started teaching it.... I'm a bit annoyed that it's taking so long to get to that stage, but such is life (and, more to the point, such is the progress of highly ambitious and complex science/engineering projects, particularly those carried out on a part-time basis... (though a number of us are working on Novamente-based projects full-time, the AGI aspects are being done part-time while a lot of focus is on short-term narrow-AI apps of the codebase that are able to generate revenue right now)) Getting widespread attention for AGI right now would probably be possible via a well-coordinated publicity effort -- but it would be foolish. The attention would not stick well enough because of excessive skepticism on the part of the conventional academic community, and because of the lack of a continuous stream of ongoing exciting results. The attention would likely fade before we get to the teaching-baby-mind phase... and then it would be more difficult to get the attention back. On the other hand, a publicity storm when the baby mind starts being taught will create attention that will stick far better -- because the criticism by conventional academics will be more muted (assuming the baby mind has been described in publications in the right journals, which is easy enough), and because the baby mind's continual intelligence improvements will an provide ongoing stream of novel fodder for the media. Attracting and sustaining media attention is not easy, but unlike creating AGI, it's a known science ;-) > However even if you do get such attention, it will still take quite a > while for the repercussions to percolate through society. Yes, of course... > Mike seemed to > be implying a technological rapture with very rapid changes at > all levels of society. > > I think that people at all levels will be slow to react while a small > percentage of early adopters who grab hold and start creating a market. > This belief is based on historical precedent. Hmmm... well, I think that once the population at large becomes AGI-aware, then the "collective mind" of the first-world business and scientific community will start thinking of all sorts of AGI applications and working really hard to make them happen. And the speed of dissemination of AGI-awareness through society will depend a lot on the mode of dissemination. For example, suppose one launched an AGI in the context of a popular online multiplayer game, say the "next Everquest" (whatever that may be).... Then a big sector of the population will "get" what the AGI is like very quickly. The game's popularity will grow because the AGI is involved with the game, and then a huge percentage of the teenage boys in the world will be highly AGI-savvy.... What if an AGI "scientist" with rudimentary English conversation skills makes a significant discovery?... and the AGI is interviewed on every popular TV talk show (together with its dubiously photogenic creator ;)? It doesn't even have to be a world-shattering discovery, just something moderately original and important, but conceived by a software system that can talk in rudimentary English about what it discovered and why. (Bear in mind that some kinds of scientific discovery will in a sense be "easy" for AGI's, compared to a lot of everyday tasks that seem easier to humans.) These are just two examples of how broad AGI awareness may be quickly raised -- there are many more... -- Ben G ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
