Re: Why SIAI is a nonprofit

From: Eliezer Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Sat Oct 23 2004 - 08:51:36 MDT


Ben Goertzel wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
>>80% of all new businesses fail. Even with an
>>excellent business plan, I think Eliezer is right, the
>>chances of success wouldn't rise above 50%. Also
>>correct is that the business would become your life.
>>You'd have to do nothing else for at least 5-10 years.
>
> Well, I am doing AGI research plus running 2 small narrow-AI-based
> businesses. It's hard but not impossible.

Duly noted, but I must point out that you have not yet *succeeded* in
making lots of money off the narrow businesses and simultaneously
developing a successful AI. So you haven't quite proved it's a workable
idea, at least not yet, even leaving aside all safety issues. The two
small businesses might be a good beginning, but Intelligenesis/Webmind got
much farther than that before it failed. Even if some AI progress was
salvageable into Novamente, that probably was not the outcome you
originally had in mind when you founded Intelligenesis. Meaning no offense
by it, just pointing out that there's farther to go before the for-profit
strategy is validated as one that can succeed all the way to the end.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://intelligence.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence


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