On Oct 23, 2006, at 7:39 AM, Ben Goertzel wrote:
Michael,
I think your summary of the situation is in many respects accurate;
but, an interesting aspect you don't mention has to do with the
disclosure of technical details...
In the case of Novamente, we have sufficient academic credibility
and know-how that we could easily publish a raft of journal papers
on the details of Novamente's design and preliminary
experimentation. With this behind us, it would not be hard for us
to get a moderate-sized team of somewhat-prestigious academic AI
researchers on board ... and then we could almost surely raise
funding from conventional government research funding sources. This
process would take a number of years but is a well-understood
process and would be very likely to succeed.
I think you need more funds to even do this as I have been waiting
sometime for some Amazon pre-orders on books you are putting out to be
filled.
The main problem then boils down to the Friendliness issue. Do we
really want to put a set of detailed scientific ideas, some
validated via software work already, that we believe are capable of
dramatically accelerating progress toward AGI, into the public
domain? Perhaps it is rational to do so, on the grounds that we
will be able to progress more rapidly toward AGI than anyone else
with the funding that this disclosure will bring, even if others
have exposure to our basic concepts. But I have not reached the
point of deciding so, yet....
As I believe that humanity is at very large risk unless massively more
intelligence is brought into the environment fairly soon, I find it
much more risky if the best AGI ideas are locked up in a relatively
few often underfunded heads. I don't believe that you or even
Eliezer are more likely to produce a friendly AGI than all other
people who may build on more knowledge. Also Friendliness per se is
generally not a card I see you lay down as a primary reason.
- samantha
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