Google TechTalks: Ben Goertzel

Here is the Google TechTalk with Dr. Ben Goertzel entitled "Artificial General Intelligence: Now Is the Time". As many of you know, he works on Novamente with Bruce Klein.



http://video.google....557046246483319

Edited by Live Forever, 06 June 2007 - 11:12 PM.

Just a warning, the audio is a bit finicky (is quiet at some parts and loud at others), and the talk seems to start a minute or 2 into his actual talk, but you don't miss much I don't think.

I have a question for Ben if he is tuned in.

In your talk you say that ~"The baby does not know the difference between itself and its mother and the bed it is sleeping on"

Is this just the standard default or does it actually occur because babies mitochondria came from the mother? Is it thus the mitochondria that builds or forges the separate personality of the child?

Is there a special bond between the mother and child that does not occur with a surrogate?

I ask because I feel that incorporating or at least simulating mitochondria is crucial for successful AGI. We must look back to the very history of how we came about and how consciousness is formed through endosymbiosis:

Edited by caston, 03 June 2007 - 03:24 PM.

Thanks, Nate!

Indeed, the first few minutes are missing, probably due to a video setup problem... and the audio is a bit sketchy (as you note) during the first few minutes, but then corrects.

Ben and I had a great time visiting Google, especially meeting Peter Norvig, Google's Dir of Research. I think we came away with a better understand of Google's position regarding AGI... which seems to be quite minimal at current, but one can never be 100% sure. I'm basing my assessment on Peter's reply and funny comment he made at the beginning of Ben's talk... so it doubly sucks that the video starts a bit late. Oh well... maybe next time.

Ben's recollection of the intro... as relayed to the Novamente team:

Earlier this week, I was giving a talk at Google, about artificial general intelligence, and Peter Norvig (Google's Director of Research) gave the intro.  I had talked to him earlier; and mentioned to him that some folks I knew suspected Google to have a top-secret AGI project.  So he gave the following intro (paraphrasing):

"There has been some talk about whether Google has a top-secret project aimed at building a thinking machine.  Well, I'll tell you what happened.  Larry Page came to me and said 'Peter, I've been hearing a lot about this Strong AI stuff.  Shouldn't we be doing something in that direction?'  So I said, okay.  I went back to my desk and logged into our project management software.  I had to write some scripts to modify it because it didn't go far enough into the future.  But I modified it so that I could put, 'Human-level intelligence' on the row of the planning spreadsheet corresponding to the year 2030.  And, that wasn't up there an hour before someone else added another item to the spreadsheet, time-stamped 90 days after that: 'Human-level intelligence: Macintosh port'"  ;-)

- Ben Goertzel

Ben's blog post on Norvig's intro:
http://blog.outer-co...-06-02.html#n28

Bruce, you had mentioned that you had heard Eliezer Yudkowsky might be doing a Google tech talk as well. Did you hear anything more about that, or was that just a rumor?

Also, how was the Google campus itself? Lots of cool stuff?

Google is very cool. Susan went w/ me and fell in love w/ the campus... volley ball, swim pool, free lunches and fresh (no sugar) smoothies. In fact, she wants to work there! Celebrity watching, I saw Larry Page walking by, most likely to meet w/ John Edwards (Pres candidate) who gave a speech there that afternoon. Interestingly, we had two days of Googlfication because Aubrey gave a talk the day before where we had the great pleasure of attending also:

http://video.google....766938711591377

No specifics on Eli's potential Google talk, but I wouldn't be surprised if this happened fairly soon.

Oh, sweet! Thanks for the link to Aubrey's. I didn't realize he had one up as well. If it is ok, I might make a thread in the News and Events forum for Aubrey's.

Sure!

So when will the Google TechTalks: Eliezer Yudkowsky video come out?

[lol]