From: Ben Goertzel (ben@webmind.com)
Date: Sun Jul 29 2001 - 14:23:40 MDT
> Ben,
>
> I think it's really a bad position to say that SIAI has no business
> developing new programming languages instead of focusing on creating a
> general intelligence AI. The Flare effort (myself et al) is somewhat
> independent from the main AI effort, and is an open-source project.
I'm afraid I may have overstated my feelings on this. I was just expressing
my personal opinion.
I don't think I said anything as strong as your paraphrase "SIAI has no
business developing new programming languages" -- of course this sort of
effort is well within the SIAI charter, and I understand that it's being
handled as a side project.
My honest opinion is that, if your goal is to push as effectively as
possible toward a real AI, your efforts would at this time be better spent
actually working on the real AI rather than on a new programming languages.
On the other hand, maybe you have much more flair (sic) for, or get more
enjoyment out of, programming language design and implementation work as
compared to AI work. Far be it from me to tell you what to work on. The
world would not be better off if everyone were clones of me and Eli (the
thought scares even *me*!!)
> We
> believe Flare will greatly reduce development time on the AI
> itself, which is definitely in the best interests of SIAI.
My intuition is otherwise; I think the main problems to be solved in
implementing a real AI at this point are still
programming-language-independent. I think Flare is a positive contribution
toward SIAI, but *less* of a positive contribution than direct work on
writing AI software in existing programming languages.
But hey, I could be wrong..
As that great Libertarian hero Mao Zedong said, "Let a thousand flowers
bloom!" ;>
-- ben g
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