RE: How hard a Singularity?

From: James Higgins (jameshiggins@earthlink.net)
Date: Wed Jun 26 2002 - 21:26:11 MDT


At 09:33 PM 6/26/2002 -0400, Michael Roy Ames wrote:
>Ben Goertzel wrote:
>>I think that, if the posited organization is going to exist, we need someone
>>to "head" it, and this shouldn't be me or Eliezer or anyone else with their
>>own AGI design and their own agenda to push.
>Committees are only really effective when there is something concrete to
>discuss. Right now nobody has a working AI... nor is even close.
>Therefore: Please forget committees for a while. When we start getting
>some results, and are much closer to a hypothetical 'takeoff' descision
>time, then it might be worth laying out the decision before a group of
>people.
>Until then, it would just be a waste of time. And as for suggesting
>committee members: *way* premature. Putting together a committee like
>this could be done very quickly... its not like you need a lot of time to
>call 10 or 20 smart, connected, people and invite them to participate in
>this kind of momentous decision.

The "organization" Ben was referring to was NOT the committee. It would
eventually be responsible for forming the committee, when it was needed
(most likely at least several years from now). But its overall goal would
be to promote the Friendliness meme for the Singularity. The key idea
would be for it to promote the concept of Friendliness in regard to the
Singularity, not just a specific implementation of that idea. A noble goal
that I would think everyone on this list would happily support.

James Higgins



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