EFTA00626593.pdf

From: Ben Goertzel To: Jeffrey Epstein <jeevacation@gmail.com> Subject: Re: AI startup Vicarious secures $40 million in investment funding Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 16:29:43 +0000 Just one more bit of spam for you... Hofstadter put it well in a recent interview, *** The people in large companies like IBM or Google, they're not asking themselves, what is thinking? They're thinking about how we can get these computers to sidestep or bypass the whole question of meaning and yet still get impressive behavior. *** ;-) On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 11:21 PM, Ben Goertzel wrote: > Hi, > Yeah, I understand that to secure substantial funding for my work, it > will likely be necessary to make an impressive demo, and we're working > on it.... When I have such a demo, I will let you know. > I think we should be able to come up with a nice "theory of mind" demo > this year, using our AI game world as a basis. (The "deception agent" > we discussed would be a part of this.) .... This may not be as > headline-grabbing as solving CAPTCHAs but will form a much sounder > basis for further work toward real AGI.... > Indeed, perhaps Dileep made a wiser choice than me in terms of rapid > securing of funding. I make no claim to be a genius of fundraising > or scientific or tech-industry politics... > On the other hand, I believe my approach has led me to understand the > problem better. I have always been driven more by understanding than > by money; which is probably associated with why I have a lot more > understanding than money ;-p > Dileep put a lot of resources on solving CAPTCHA, which was a very > cool demo. In the course of doing this, he did not build his > understanding of the broader AGI problem; but he created something > that was broadly viewed as proving the validity of his approach, which > enabled him to raise a lot of money... > Similarly, Demis Hassabis put a lot of resources on making a system EFTA00626593 > that could learn to play simple video games using computer vision and > reinforcement learning. This is basically a bunch of fiddling-around > and tuning of known algorithms, which did not impress any of the > world's reinforcement learning / vision experts particularly; but it > did blow Larry Page away and got Demis a fat acquisition for Deep > Mind. Good for Demis! ;) > I have worked on many aspects of the AGI problem at once, rather than > focusing on pushing one corner of the solution to an impressively > demo-able state; which has made it very slow for me to get to an > impressive demo, but has enabled me to understand the problem in all > its aspects pretty well... > Regarding Vicarious, though -- I'm sure you also understand that luck > plays a large role in these things. Dileep was in the right place at > the right time, and making use of this fact, he connected himself with > the right people in the right way. Many others just as smart as him > have put years of their lives into constructing wizzy demos, and have > done so successfully, but have not gained much $$ or understanding in > the process just due to contingent factors... > Bear in mind, more than 70,000 man-years of effort have gone into the > Linux OS. Windows has taken millions of man-years of effort. These > are just operating systems; not thinking machines. If OpenCog can be > created in a couple hundred man-years of effort all total, that will > be remarkable efficiency compared to that with which operating systems > or more commercial software programs have been built. And the fact > that with a mere low-dozens of man-years of effort we have struggled > to come up with an impressive demo shouldn't be a big shock. AGI is > difficult. Of course it's easier to make a demo if you address an > easier problem, like recognizing CAPTCHAs or playing Atari games, in a > way that doesn't reflect a truly general architecture or approach... > ;) > ben > -- Ben > On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 9:57 PM, Jeffrey Epstein leevacation@gmail.com> wrote: >> understood , the major difference between him and you was that he had a >> demo. I have been consistant that optimism needs to be coupled with » demonstrations. >> On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 5:13 AM, Ben Goertzel wrote: >» >» Hi, >» >» I guess you saw this news, right? EFTA00626594 >>> >» I know Dileep George (the founder of Vicarious Systems) a bit. >>> At my invitation, he spoke at our AGI-13 conference in Beijing. >>> >>> As Dileep told me then, the sole focus of his company is on visual object >>> recognition --- identifying what are the objects in a picture. Once >>> they crack that, they will move onto recognizing events in videos. >>> Once they crack that, they will move on to other aspects of >>> intelligence. Dileep, like his mentor Jeff Hawkins, believes that >>> perceptual data processing is the key to general intelligence... and >>> that vision is the paradigm case of human perceptual data >>> processing... >>> >>> Given Facebook's large trove of pictures and the nature of their >>> business, it seems they would have great value for software that can >>> effectively identify objects in pictures. >>> >>> Privately: I felt Dileep's overall understanding of AGI issues, beyond >>> perception processing, was pretty weak. Demis Hassabis (founder of Deep >>> Mind, >>> recently purchased by Google for —US$500M), >>> always struck me as having a much broader, deeper view. >>> >>> Note that Facebook just made a big announcement about the success of their >>> face recognition software, which they saddled with the perplexingly >>> bad name "Deep Face": (a bit Linda Lovelace, no?) >>> >>> >>> http://www.extremetech.corn/extreme/I78777-facebooks-facial-recognition-software-is-now-as-accurate-as- the-human-brain-but-what-now >>> >>> Actually DeepFace uses a standard, well known "textbook" AI algorithm >>> (convolutional neural nets), but they deployed it across a huge amount >>> of data, hence their >>> unprecedented success... >>> >>> >» -- Ben >>> >>> >>>-- >>> Ben Goertzel, PhD >>> http://goertzel.org >>> >>> "In an insane world, the sane man must appear to be insane". — Capt. >>> James T. Kirk >>> >>> "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery / None but ourselves can free >>> our minds" -- Robert Nesta Marley EFTA00626595 >> ***** ****************************************************** >> The information contained in this communication is >> confidential, may be attorney-client privileged, may >> constitute inside information, and is intended only for >> the use of the addressee. It is the property of » Jeffrey Epstein >> Unauthorized use, disclosure or copying of this >> communication or any part thereof is strictly prohibited >> and may be unlawful. If you have received this >> communication in error, please notify us immediately by >> return e-mail or by e-mail to jeevacation@gmail.com, and >> destroy this communication and all copies thereof, >> including all attachments. copyright -all rights reserved > -- > Ben Goertzel, PhD > http://goertzel.org > • "In an insane world, the sane man must appear to be insane". — Capt. > James T. Kirk > • "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery / None but ourselves can free > our minds" -- Robert Nesta Marley Ben Goertzel, PhD http://goertzel.org "In an insane world, the sane man must appear to be insane". -- Capt. James T. Kirk "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery / None but ourselves can free our minds" -- Robert Nesta Marley EFTA00626596