[brokenportal]

Mind interviewed Ben Goertzl in the sunday evening update again yesterday. It occurs to me today, we have a way to get people to help with exposure for the cause through imminst and we have a way to get people to help with the science through MFURI. How though for agi? Why dont we help get an NMURI program going, "Nova Mente Undergraduate Research Initiative." Yes, no, would it work, would it not work?

[modelcadet]

brokenportal, on 8-Dec 2008, 09:39 PM, said:

Mind interviewed Ben Goertzl in the sunday evening update again yesterday. It occurs to me today, we have a way to get people to help with exposure for the cause through imminst and we have a way to get people to help with the science through MFURI. How though for agi? Why dont we help get an NMURI program going, "Nova Mente Undergraduate Research Initiative." Yes, no, would it work, would it not work?

I think this is a great idea. I would love to work through such a project; even if there weren't money involved. As Ben said though, a lot of the programming work requires 1337 coders. Undergrads (except maybe Joseph) can't really do that. Most programmers can't.

I think Undergrads can do quite a bit though. Marketing, non-profit and business administration, political advocacy, etc etc... And I believe undergrads can work on other, more technical areas, like friendliness, as I am doing... but all these things require beastly brains.

But yeah... I personally would love more access to luminaries like Ben and Eliezer. Well, Eliezer not quite so much... but still, I'd love to not have to complete mathematical feats in order to access him. I know they are all very busy. Perhaps we could start something with the help of Michael Vassar...

[brokenportal]

Maybe we could get Micheal Vassar on the sunday evening update. Any dialogue in this regard would be helpful in sparking this idea somewhere. Another thing is, why not an AGI prize like the mouse prize and x prize?

[Connor MacLeod]

modelcadet, on 8-Dec 2008, 10:45 PM, said:

brokenportal, on 8-Dec 2008, 09:39 PM, said:

Mind interviewed Ben Goertzl in the sunday evening update again yesterday. It occurs to me today, we have a way to get people to help with exposure for the cause through imminst and we have a way to get people to help with the science through MFURI. How though for agi? Why dont we help get an NMURI program going, "Nova Mente Undergraduate Research Initiative." Yes, no, would it work, would it not work?

I think this is a great idea. I would love to work through such a project; even if there weren't money involved. As Ben said though, a lot of the programming work requires 1337 coders.

I guess I'm pretty 1337.

Quote

But yeah... I personally would love more access to luminaries like Ben and Eliezer. Well, Eliezer not quite so much... but still, I'd love to not have to complete mathematical feats in order to access him.

What, does he require you to compute a posterior probability before answering a query?

Heh!!! After glancing at his website it appears that this is more or less what he wants:

Quote

I am not interested in your amazing new theory of Artificial Intelligence unless you can derive the formula for propagating updates in a Bayesian network.

That's seems to be a pretty low bar.

Quote

You do not have psychic powers.

No, but occasionally God lets me make inferences based on His prior...beats the heck out of Jeffrey's every time.

This post has been edited by Connor MacLeod: 15 December 2008 - 08:00 AM

[Heliotrope]

mfuri does biology, nfuri does computer sci , nice combo

[brokenportal]

Would you help support an agi undergraduate research initiative?

[Heliotrope]

brokenportal, on 15-Dec 2008, 03:08 AM, said:

Would you help support an agi undergraduate research initiative?

yes. like i said: "mfuri does biology, nfuri does computer sci , nice combo "


that's a 1-2 killer punch, cool boxing combo that deals a blow to our blight

[brokenportal]

I was writing that to connor at the same time that you were writing that response. In any case the question works well for anybody. So you would support it then, like, you would help contact universities and tell them about such a program and try to get them to get students in their clubs and stuff to sign up?

It would be a killer punch. Through chatting with so many people Im realizing there are 4 main paths that people choose from to help with the cause, agi, science, exposure and philanthropy. I was then thinking how and undergraduate research initiative and a prize would work well with most all of them wouldnt it?

There could also be an agi prize like the m and x prize.

Then there could also be an undergraduate research initiative for the exposure too right? And then more prizes could be offered for say like, commercials. We could put up something like a 500 dollar prize to whoever can make the best commercial, and that kind of thing.

This post has been edited by brokenportal: 15 December 2008 - 08:17 AM

[Heliotrope]

Exposure, publicity, no-secret little known org type, ads, philanthropy/donation too, yes

you can make initiative w/ millionaires donating


and news expose in good ways , ads etc

[brokenportal]

Im a little confused, could you rephrase that?

[Heliotrope]

brokenportal, on 15-Dec 2008, 03:44 AM, said:

Im a little confused, could you rephrase that?

Basically this is another nice combo that can be planned out.

I like the 4 things you said.

1. mfuri
2. nfuri
3. ad
4. money

ask for ad and donation too. new initiatives

This post has been edited by HYP86: 15 December 2008 - 08:53 AM

[modelcadet]

Connor MacLeod, on 15-Dec 2008, 03:59 AM, said:

That's seems to be a pretty low bar.

Yeah, I know. But I was moreso implying that I can use the credibility I have as a member of this community, a sister to the SIAI. I'm sure he gets a lot of emails, but he's pretty conspicuous about his filtering mechanisms, which include but are not limited to the above example: It's intimidating to the more Platonic among us budding Jupiter Brains. I lurk on Ben's email lists, but I think I've only ever sent an email once or twice. I really enjoy using ImmInst as an interface with these researchers, though, I think because of the community. No matter how big SIAI gets, ImmInst will always be there, like the older brother who, after having turned to alcoholism, receives a check every month out of duty to family...

ImmInst should work with SingInst to create a profitable project in biofeedback sensors and services. We should get some people who can program for android and that POS the iPhone, some who can do some computational biology black majik, and some of the more classic medicine, mechanical engineering, biology, economics, marketing, etc etc. to start outputting a suite of really cheap biofeedback devices and sensors. I know we have the technology today to make bluetooth heart moniters that connect to your smartphone and send data real-time about your health and location (yay GPS!). Perhaps open instructionals for different things, with open code for the software side...

Anyway, we were talking about starting projects. I like that ImmInst has projects. SingInst needs projects. The thing... SingInst has no open boards. I feel like they're doing this intentionally, and it's part of the reason why they are so successful (besides the fascinatingly perplexing manner in which Ray Kurzweil reinvigorates the idea of economic growth). There are a lot of us eccentrics interested in these new transcendental projects, and I'm sure we can be quite offputting (I know most people look at me and think I'm crazy when I try to talk to them on the level; I feel sometimes like I'm trying to teach math to kid whose brain hasn't yet grown enough to learn the concept). If SingInst sanitizes itself of the general transhumanist movement to gain credibility, should we take that as a compliment if they do attain success in spreading memes and advancing temes?

All I know is this: I'm prolly gonna have about $10,000 in debt when I graduate, but as long as I can hack that, have a roof over my head, food in my belly, and access to nootropics, I'm willing to do just about anything, from telemarketing (shudder) to hoboing it up outside Google with a sign saying something new every day until they hire me. I'm sure there are more young people like me who understand the magnitude of the subject, and would be willing to do about anything for even a tiny bit of push in that next giant leap for mankind.

[I just decided I will creative commons or science commons my hobo signs]

This post has been edited by modelcadet: 15 December 2008 - 02:57 PM

[brokenportal]

Well, Im thinking that if an interested and qualified person wanted to do it, then they could talk to Ben and Bruce, and then get some guidance from Kelsey about how he has been doing it for MFURI, and then start setting it up. You seem like you might have the insight and tenacity to do it, if it turns out that you do then could you do it, and or do you know of other people you might recomend to do it and or help with the project?

[Mind]

Here is how Ben said we could combine narrow AI (like biomind) and life extension research:

We need some biology people t go through and standardize some large data sets and format it so that biomind (a narrow AI developed by Novamente) can analyze the data and derive new relationships between genetics and metabolism. It's boring work, but could be done with a couple seasoned biology/chem people leading a group of undergrads - undergrads do most of the boring stuff of course, combing through reems of data, leaders do QC. Anyway, that is Ben's vision of how to accelerate anti-aging research - identify complex genetic/metabolic relationships that are hidden in the data and then use that to focus on new highly targeted research.

[brokenportal]

Mind, on 15-Dec 2008, 06:54 PM, said:

Here is how Ben said we could combine narrow AI (like biomind) and life extension research:

We need some biology people t go through and standardize some large data sets and format it so that biomind (a narrow AI developed by Novamente) can analyze the data and derive new relationships between genetics and metabolism. It's boring work, but could be done with a couple seasoned biology/chem people leading a group of undergrads - undergrads do most of the boring stuff of course, combing through reems of data, leaders do QC. Anyway, that is Ben's vision of how to accelerate anti-aging research - identify complex genetic/metabolic relationships that are hidden in the data and then use that to focus on new highly targeted research.

Would that be in any way like how folding at home figures out proteins on our computers? Helping solve sens more directly through distributed computing would, well, the very thought of it has got butterflys in my stomach. Or dragonflys I guess rather. Apparently dragonflys are some kind of symbol for immortality.

So then would an undergrad initiative be a good thing to set up for this? Ive invited Bruce and Ben to this thread. Hopefully they let us know.

Does anybody know if Novamente has any money and if or if not would it be worth funding undergrad research like that through imminst? Seems like that would be a huge green light to me, especially since Ben in those quotes there seems to be looking for a good way to get it going.

[Joseph]

I like the ideas presented here!

brokenportal said:

Does anybody know if Novamente has any money and if or if not would it be worth funding undergrad research like that through imminst?

That would be an interesting development. Ben will speak for himself, but I think that would be a good partnership! (Assuming the Novamente project isn't at a position where extra funds would only give diminishing returns)

My two cents:

One thing that I've figured out is that I can disguise my AGI research/development as more conventional projects. For instance, I just got permission at my university to build a Semi-Stochastic Time-Series Pattern Detector (for stock market prediction) and receive credit as if it were a regular class (essentially just an independent study). But here's the kicker.... it's a required subsystem in my AGI design, so I'm killing two projects with one keyboard.

I would suggest anyone with AGI ambitions to try to do the same... I know it saves me time, so it might be something to try (Although it's not exactly a PR campaign as you all are discussing).

EDIT: Grammar

This post has been edited by Joseph: 16 December 2008 - 07:33 AM

[modelcadet]

Joseph, I think what you're doing is brilliant. Perhaps we, as a community, could brainstorm a set of more mainstream sugary coatings for our necessary set of projects. I for one am using historical economic studies to do work on the Friendliness problem. I've always wanted to create a wiki of dissertation ideas... not that I have the time to complete too many myself...

[brokenportal]

Joseph, on 16-Dec 2008, 02:32 AM, said:

(Although it's not exactly a PR campaign as you all are discussing).

Well, it would be a PR campaign and a way to bolster the science. I mean if something like that got even just 5 more students in the whole world to work on AGI projects more and one of them came out with some amazing breakthroughs, then that could mean the difference between a grave yard and having the chance to see indefinity and all of existence pioneered.

[Joseph]

modelcadet said:

Perhaps we, as a community, could brainstorm a set of more mainstream sugary coatings for our necessary set of projects

I think this would definitely be a good use of our time.

modelcadet said:

I for one am using historical economic studies to do work on the Friendliness problem.

I'm interested in learning a some about this, any interesting findings so far?

brokenportal said:

Well, it would be a PR campaign and a way to bolster the science.

I didn't look at it that way, but you're right! Back in the early 60's AI research shattered into a thousand pieces like a broken window, and we've been slowly sweeping them into a single pile for the past 50 years. A general theory of intelligence and thus a general theory of artificial intelligence is getting closer, and is seeming more like a realistic goal than ever. Even if we did nothing to push the concept of AGI into the mainstream, it would still find its way in within the next decade.

The most important thing for AGI research at this point is to have a place for open dialogue and discussion and a collection of very intelligent people, which luckily we have.

[dhart]

Several undergraduate students are working informally now on OpenCog (http://www.opencog.org), which is an open source project based on the Novamente Cognition Engine.

Earlier this year Google funded undergraduate OpenCog research (http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2008...g-and-gsoc.html).

On the subject of sensors & services, check out http://www.opensourcesensing.org/, a project sponsored by the Foresight Institute.