> Now, let me ask you a question: Do you believe that all AI / AGI > researchers are toiling over all this for the challenge, or purely out of > interest? I doubt that as well. Surely there are those elements as drivers > - BUT SO IS MONEY.
Aki, you don't seem to understand the psychology of the AGI researcher very well. Firstly, academic AGI researchers are not in it for the $$, and are unlikely to profit from their creations no matter how successful. Yes, spinoffs from academia to industry exist, but the point is that academic work is motivated by love of science and desire for STATUS more so than desire for money. Next, Singularitarian AGI researchers, even if in the business domain (like myself), value the creation of AGI far more than the obtaining of material profits. I am very interested in deriving $$ from incremental steps on the path to powerful AGI, because I think this is one of the better methods available for funding AGI R&D work. But deriving $$ from human-level AGI really is not a big motivator of mine. To me, once human-level AGI is obtained, we have something of dramatically more interest than accumulation of any amount of wealth. Yes, I assume that if I succeed in creating a human-level AGI, then huge amounts of $$ for research will come my way, along with enough personal $$ to liberate me from needing to manage software development contracts or mop my own floor. That will be very nice. But that's just not the point. I'm envisioning a population of cockroaches constantly fighting over crumbs of food on the floor. Then a few of the cockroaches -- let's call them the Cockroach Robot Club -- decide to spend their lives focused on creating a superhuman robot which will incidentally allow cockroaches to upload into superhuman form with superhuman intelligence. And the other cockroaches insist that Cockroach Robot Club's motivation in doing this must be a desire to get more crumbs of food. After all, just **IMAGINE** how many crumbs of food you'll be able to get with that superhuman robot on your side!!! Buckets full of crumbs!!! ;-) -- Ben G ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=98558129-0bdb63 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
