Hi,
You mention "intermediate steps to AI", but the question is whether these are narrow-AI applications (the bane of AGI projects) or some sort of (incomplete) AGI.
According the approach I have charted out (the only one I understand), the true path to AGI does not really involve commercially valuable intermediate stages. This is for reasons similar to the reasons that babies are not very economically useful. So, yeah, the only way I see to use commercial AI to fund AGI is to build narrow-AI projects and sell them, and do a combination of a) using the profits to fund AGI b) using common software components btw the narrow-AI and AGI systems, so the narrow-AI work can help the AGI directly to some extent Of course, if you believe (as e.g. the Google founders do) that Web search can be a path to AGI, then you have an easier time of it, because there is commercial work that appears to be on the direct path to true AGI. But my best guess is that this is an illusion. IMO by far the best path to a true AGI is by building an artificial baby and educating it and incrementally improving it, and by its very nature this path does not lead to incremental commercially viable results. -- Ben G ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=11983
