EFTA00715319.pdf

From: Ben Goertzel To: Jeffrey Epstein <jeevacation@gmail.com> Subject: Re: List of some interesting people ;-) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2013 00:52:34 +0000 Oops... please use this version of the list instead. (The previous one had some marks in there like XX and XXX that were just interim markers indicating to me where a URL needed to be inserted...) thx ;) ben *** CLEANED-UP LIST OF INTERESTING PEOPLE... sss *5* Dr. Joscha Bach http://www.youtube.corn/watch?v=PyKzO0MFIzI A young German AGI researcher with a psychology background. His AGI system is called MicroPsi, and it's the inspiration for OpenCog's emotion/motivation system. He had a couple academic post-docs but is now working in industry developing a new version of MicroPsi and applying it to practical problems.... Very deep thinker, though he's kind of an AGI pessimist (he thinks it's 30-50 years off). *5* Dr. David Hanson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjW-v0IPT_M I told you about him already, he's the guy who makes the realistic robot heads; see http://hansonrobotics.com .... A sculptor, robotics hardware tinkerer, robot software hacker and theorist about human-robot empathy and its importance for the future of intelligence *** Dr. Mark Tilden http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0t_TqJae6s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F95YW_SoytI [robo sapien in action] 300-pound, 6'S" American with a cowboy hat and a loud voice who is hard to shut up. Lives in Hong Kong and is probably the world's most talented robot hardware designer. Knows neuroscience very well also. Built the RoboSapien for Wowee, a toy humanoid robot with some pretty sophisticated underpinnings, which sold 23 million units... Did EFTA00715319 DARPA-funded robotics in the US before going into industry. *** Dr. Jean-Christophe Baillie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_MlLfbp5N0 http://www.aldebaran-robotics.com/en/ The main scientist underlying Aldebaran Robotics, makers of the Nao humanoid robot. I only met him once. He is interested in teaching robot toddlers language, and is setting up labs in France and Beijing with this aim. *** Dr. Angelo Cangelosi http://www.tech.plym.ac.uldsoc/staff/angelo/ Keynoted at AGI-12.... Very solid cognitive-robotics researcher, aimed at ultimately making robot toddlers. Big player in the European iCub robotics project (in which Juergen Schmid huber is also more peripherally involved). *** Dr. Derek Bickerton http://www.psychologytoday.corn/experts/derek-bickerton A linguist, age 85 or so by now, living in Hawaii. Very deep understanding of the roots of language in culture, interaction, experience... Check out his book "Adam's Tongue." X ... and all his other books... *** Dr. Michael Tomasello http://email.eva.mpg.det—tomas/ I do not know this guy at all. But his work on the social and embodied foundations of language is brilliant, e.g. see his book "Constructing a Language." *** Kent Kemmish http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d38KLNOW9jc Was chief experimental biologist at Halcyon Molecular before it went EFTA00715320 under last year. Knows more about fast genome sequencing than probably anyone. Wants to make a swimming pool full of synthetic organisms and probably could. No PhD, but that's sort of a quirk, he's certainly a beyond-PhD-level lab researcher... *** Dr. George Church http://arep.med.harvard.edu/gmc/ @Harvard ... I never met him, but he works on synthetic biology and Kent knows him well says he's awesome *** Dr. Ed Boyden Will probably win the Nobel Prize for optogenetics. Lots of other fascinating ideas as well. I don't know him well, we chatted briefly when he keynoted at AGI-11 at Dr. Itamar Arel you know him. While he's currently kinda distracted with his successful trading operation, he's a brilliant engineering/AI mind... *** Dr. Michael Rose http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljL_4-WnOsY The guy who evolved the long-lived flies, whose genomes I've been sequencing. A very deep thinker about evolution in all its aspects. Used to do systems biology. Should win the Nobel Prize for his various work on evolutionary theory, but I think that's quite unlikely... *5* Dr. Aubrey de Grey http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iYpxRXlboQ http://sens.org/sens-research/research-themes An impressive lateral thinker about radical human life extension and how to achieve it.... Read his book Ending Aging. He's been mostly speechifying for the last few years, but still he's intellectually brilliant as well.. *5* EFTA00715321 John Smart http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbq3miYfVa4 hap://evodevouniverse.corn/wiki/Main_Page http://accelerating.org/articles/transcensionhypothesis.html Writing a book on Evo-Devo (Evolutionary-Developmental theory, as applied to pretty much everything). Creator of the Transcension Hypothesis about the long-term future of intelligence ... Ran a Singularity tent at Burning Man several times (I guess you know what Burning Man is.... Looks cool, but I never went due to spending most of my non-work time with my kids, who until recently were too young for that sort of thing...) at Dr. Aaron Sloman http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/—axs/ A friend of Minsky's, a 70-something cognitive science / math / AI guy from the UK. I always thought he was a deeper thinker about the mind than Marvin. Anyway I don't really know Marvin (though we had a couple brief F2F chats), whereas Aaron and I have talked a fair bit. He is an AGI skeptic; he thinks it's centuries away. But he's very smart and interesting. *** Dr. Juergen Schmidhuber http://www.idsia.ch/—juergen/ Currently leads the IDSIA Al institute in Lugano, Switzerland, where he hosted AGI-10.... Has done a huge variety of influential AI work (though not quite as influential as he thinks, he tends to take credit for inventing the whole field of AI...). A very funny, urbane European type; and a good artist as well as scientist/mathematician.... Perhaps the leading neural net researcher in the world currently.... *** Dr. Ray Kurzweil of course *** Peter Diamandis Creator of the X-Prize. I have met him once, don't know him well. Very smart, broad-minded, great at Getting Things Done.... EFTA00715322 *** Martine Rothblatt She's CEO of $2 billion pharma firm United Therapeutics. Formerly Martin Rothblatt. Made her/his $$ initially in satellite radio. She's a biz-person not a scientist, but very insightful and visionary. I know her slightly better than I know you, I guess. She's never invested/donated in my projects, but we have a lot of mutual liking and respect, and she may well do so when the time is right. She has invested in David Hanson's robotics company, and some of Ray's projects. She is a strange, but highly effective, mix of hippie, lawyer and hard-nosed business-person.... She kept the same wife, Bina after her sex change. David Hanson's Bina48 robot head looks like Martine's wife Bina, and is pretty cool.... *5* Dr. Max More http://www.maxmore.com http://www.alcor.org CEO of Alcor (the leading cryonics firm), and before that, arguably the founding philosopher of transhumanism.... *** Dr. Natasha Vita-More http://www.natasha.cc http://flaunt.cornifeatures/1 I 8/post-humans-are-people-too-natasha-vita-more If you invite Max, inviting his wife Natasha Vita-More might be apropos. She is a good artist & designer, a former fashion model (now 60-something; Max is considerably younger than her), and a reasonably interesting transhumanist thinker. She used to be fairly wealthy but somehow lost it. And -- off the record -- she's a great example of what a woman looks like after waaaayyy too much plastic surgery... *** Dr. Jeffery Martin A psych PhD with also a Harvard biz degree and lots of entrepreneurial experience. He did an amazing 4-year study recently, psychologically profiling a large number of "enlightened" people (people with "persistent non-symbolic states" of consciousness)... I'll send you his draft paper if you're curious... *** Dr. Gino Yu Gino is the guy who got me set up in Hong Kong. He's married to a EFTA00715323 rich HongKong-ese woman (who was formerly head of the HK Chamber of Commerce, and is currently in jail for insider trading, but gets out soon), whose dad owns some big manufacturing firm. Gino has an Al PhD originally but now is more into theorizing about consciousness and game design. I don't think he will ever do great research -- he is too enlightened to bother -- but he is amazing at connecting people to each other. I think he could help you down the road, get into contact with more and more smart, interesting folks... *** Dr. Leslie Allan Combs http://www.sourceintegralis.org/articles.html Jeffery's PhD advisor. Around 70 now and not as consistently brilliant as he used to be. But Leslie (he used to go by Allan, now switched to Leslie) understands the human mind and brain in all their aspects phenomenally well...) *** Jaffray Woodriff Founder of $5 billion hedge fund Quantitative Investment Management (quantitative.com). Like you, Jeffery is not only a great financier but a deep thinker about all aspects of science. His find is based on his own AI algorithms and is pretty successful. He invested about $400K into my bioinformatics effort during 2002-2005. (That work has not been dramatically successful commercially; but is making real scientific progress and is still ongoing as you know.) Lives in Charlottesville VA with young wife and 2 kids. Kind of a socially conservative southern guy, on a personal level; although intellectually quite adventurous. But s000000 smart.... You two would have incredible conversations about finance & economy.... *** RU Sirius (Ken Goffinan) http://www.acceler8or.corriltags/r-u-sirius/ The premier journalist of cyber-culture in its early days, and still going strong XX.... He must be 60+ by now. He edited Mondo 2000, which came before Wired Magazine and was similar but a lot cooler and more out-there... *** Dan Stoicescu (if we could get him) Early-retired oncologist / biochemist / entrepreneur. High net worth at least in the tens of millions US. Funds RU Sirius's online magazine now, funded Humanity+ and my work minorly in the past.... Very smart, deep thinker in all sorts of ways. Urbane European type of guy. This is the "eccentric rich guy" in the anecdote about Cate Hartley and weed that I rushed through near the end of our meeting. He sometimes, but not always, answers my emails. EFTA00715324 *** Steve Jurvetson I have met him once but don't know him well. He is the only famous Silicon Valley VC with a deep understanding of advanced technology. He created the nanotech investment boom singlehandedly. *5* Eric Drexler http://e-drexler.com Inventor of nanotechnology. Still brilliant. I bumped into him recently at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford, right before the AGI-12 conference *5* Ralph Merkle http://www.merkle.com Inventor of the medical nanotechnology concept. Claims if he had US$10M he could make huge progress toward creating a molecular assembler (the holy grail of nanotech). I don't know enough practical nanotech to evaluate his claims, but he's certainly brilliant and interesting. *5* David Brin http://www.davidbrin.com/transparency.html Famous science fiction writer. His nonfiction book "The Transparent Society" about the end of privacy, is a true classic for the ages. He's not a technologist, but the deepest-thinking socio-political commentator I know of. *** Jamais Cascio http://www.worldchanging.com/bios/jamais.html Similar profile to David Brin but without the science fiction writing. Very deep thinker and good writer about the future of technology and its social and political implications. I disagree with him a majority of the time, as he's way more conservative than me; but he's smart and interesting. *** Amara Angelica http://kurzweilai.net EFTA00715325 Ray Kurzweil's second-in-command, who manages the kurzweilai.net website, and has an amazing breadth of knowledge about all things future-technology.... Way back when, she wrote for RU's magazine Mondo 2000, under the pen name "Queen Mu" *** Dr. Damien Broderick Best known as a science fiction writer, Damien also wrote a book called "The Spike" in the late 1990s, which was basically just like Kurzweil's "The Singularity is Near", but too far ahead of its time (and better-written).... Has edited some other books on futurist tech.. *5* Heather Knight (no Dr. yet, but she's a PhD student currently) http://www.marilynmonrobot.com She's done a lot of practical work on robotics, focused on getting robots to interact interestingly with people.... I wouldn't call her an incredibly deep thinker, but she's technically solid as well as extremely nice to look at, so if we want a little bit of gender balance she's a great choice. Very sweet, nice girl, as well as super-clever... *5* Joichi Ito Well you probably know Joi better than I do by now, due to his recent role with MIT Media Lab.... He's actually a quite interesting thinker as well as a jet-setter, VC, etc. I have only met with him a few times, and we haven't talked at great length. But it would be great to engage him with AGI a little more. *5* Dr. Wlodek Duch http://www.is.umk.pU—duch/ The king of AI in Poland ... loads of work on neural nets and neuroscience ... currently he's spending much of his time in Singapore trying, as he puts it, to "launch a neurocognitive revolution" there ... *5* Dr. Kwabena Boahen http://www.stanford.edu/group/brainsinsilicon/boahen.html I don't know this guy, but he's at Stanford and his work on neuromorphic hardware chips seems pretty amazing. From what I can tell it's better than what IBM is doing on the DARPA-funded Synapse project (which gets a lot of media attention, though Boahen's work gets much less so). He is a black African btw, though based in the EFTA00715326 US... *** Getnet Aseffa This is a friend of mine from Ethiopia. For his day job he designs and builds (driving and flying) robots for the Ethiopian military, to surveil their border with Sudan... He also gives seminars on the Singularity in Addis Ababa (maybe 7-8 per years), and gets 700-800 people to attend each time. He's young, maybe 28, and kind of naive about the world outside Africa. But he knows Africa very well, and has a great vision of the future of technology... A sharp mind with great ambition; a memorable character... *** Dr. Randal Koene http://www.carboncopies.org A neuroscientist, who also did genomics at Halcyon Molecular before it folded, and is now the leading serious scientific exponent of mind uploading (see his papers in the Special Issue on Mind Uploading http://wp.goertzel.org/?page_id=368 that I edited). His efforts are currently funded by Dmitry Itskov, the Russian tech entrepreneur who funded the Russia 2045 initiative (premised on the idea that the Singularity will be launched in 2045 in Russia...) *** Luke Nosek Luke is a VC not a scientist, but he's done some visionary investments, mainly Halcyon Molecular (which turned out badly business-wise, but was an amazing collection of smart people). He is deeply enmeshed in Silicon Valley's social networks, yet also understands the Singularity and advanced technology. In the last few years he's been deeply into Zen. He kinda (I don't know how hard) pushed Founders Fund (his VC firm) invest in my or Itamar's technology but failed.... Luke works with Peter Thiel, who would be interesting to pull into a gathering also; but Luke is a lot more likely to come than Peter.... (Peter may be a bit smarter, but Luke is also smart and is less of a dick...) *** Jaan Tallinn http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_otUMISAcA One of the three founders of Skype. He funds the Cambridge research unit devoted to studying whether AGI will destroy the world and how to stop it.... I don't share his paranoid attitude about AI, but I think he's a good guy and an interesting mind... *5* Dr. Stuart Armstrong EFTA00715327 hftp://www.thi.ox.ac.ukJour staff/research/stuart_armstrong Recent post assessing Kurzweil's predictions: http://lesswrong.corn/lw/gbilassessing_kurzweil_the_results/ If you wanted a representative of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute (who also worries full-time about Al destroying the world), I'd choose Stuart, a young math PhD who is very broad-minded and smart. He's a bit more fun and dynamic than his boss Nick Bostrom, though Nick is more famous.... Definitely has the old-school British charm ;) *** Dr. Paul Werbos http://www.werbos.com Invented some fundamental neural net stuff a long time ago. Paul is now an NSF program manager, and worries a lot about advanced technology killing off humanity. He has a better understanding of US science funding and its relation to geopolitics than anybody else on the planet. Also comprehensive knowledge of energy and space science. The best of DC science I would say... *5* Dr. Francis Heylighen http://globalbraininstitute.org Head of the Global Brain Institute at the Free University of Brussels (which btw is funded by Yuri Milner, a Russian Internet entrepreneur) *** Dr. Bryant Villeponteau A 70+ biopharma guy, who discovered important stuff about telomerase and aging at Geron, decades ago (and was named Scientist of the Year for this). He is the guy doing the pharmaceutical portion of the work with the long-lived flies (in my project with Michael Rose).... More of a traditional biopharma researcher than a 21 st-century bio visionary -- but WOW, what a great traditional biopharma researcher!! *** Dirk Aerts http://arxiv.org/a/aerts_d_l At the Free University of Brussels. He has pioneered the seemingly crazy, yet still interesting, idea that quantum logic should be used to reason about some classical systems (not just human brains but also some fairly simple classical systems, all depending on the relation of the observer to the system). I have emailed with him but never met EFTA00715328 him; he seems a bit reclusive.... But such creative research !!! On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 7:16 PM, Ben Goertzel a wrote: > Hi Jeffrey, > Thanks for taking the time to talk w/ me yesterday! > As you requested, here is a quickly-assembled list of some "really > smart, interesting people who I think Jeffrey would enjoy meeting" .... > Mostly these are folks I know personally. But, the mix also includes > some people whom I don't know, but whose work I greatly respect.... I > have annotated each name with some rough, informal notes (which > obviously are not for dissemination ;p ...) > I haven't restricted attention to science PhD's; but everyone listed > is connected closely with groundbreaking science or futuristic tech in > some way.... The list also embodies some personality-based filtering -- > i.e. these are mostly rather open minded, "a little bit out there" > people.... > Note that this is NOT a group of folks who agree with me about AGI or > much of anything else.... (Though I have relationships of mutual > intellectual respect with all of the folks I know and have mentioned, > obviously.) They're just brilliant, creative, diverse minds, who > would have a hell of a lot of fascinating, productive conversations if > all in one place.... > The list is in no particular order... > ben *** > LIST BELOW > *** *** > Dr. Joscha Bach > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py1CzO0MF I zI > A young German AGI researcher with a psychology background. His AGI > system is called MicroPsi, and it's the inspiration for OpenCog's > emotion/motivation system. He had a couple academic post-docs but is > now working in industry developing a new version of MicroPsi and > applying it to practical problems.... Very deep thinker, though he's > kind of an AGI pessimist (he thinks it's 30-50 years off). EFTA00715329 *** > Dr. David Hanson > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjW-vOIPT_M > I told you about him already, he's the guy who makes the realistic > robot heads; see hansonrobotics.com X .... A sculptor, robotics > hardware tinkerer, robot software hacker and theorist about > human-robot empathy and its importance for the future of intelligence *** > Dr. Mark Tilden > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0t_TqJae6s > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F95YW_Soytl [robo sapien in action] > 300-pound, 6'5" American with a cowboy hat and a loud voice who is > hard to shut up. Lives in Hong Kong and is probably the world's most > talented robot hardware designer. Knows neuroscience very well also. > Built the RoboSapien for Wowee, a toy humanoid robot with some pretty > sophisticated underpinnings, which sold 23 million units... Did > DARPA-funded robotics in the US before going into industry. *** > Dr. Jean-Christophe Baillie > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_MILfbp5NO > http://www.aldebaran-robotics.com/enl > The main scientist underlying Aldebaran Robotics, makers of the Nao > humanoid robot. I only met him once. He is interested in teaching > robot toddlers language, and is setting up labs in France and Beijing > with this aim. >.*** > Dr. Angelo Cangelosi > http://www.tech.plym.ac.ukJsoc/stafftangelo/ > Keynoted at AGI-12.... Very solid cognitive-robotics researcher, aimed > at ultimately making robot toddlers. Big player in the European iCub > robotics project (in which Juergen Schmid huber is also more > peripherally involved). ■s■ > Dr. Derek Bickerton > http://www.psychologytoday.com/experts/derek-bickerton EFTA00715330 > A linguist, age 85 or so by now, living in Hawaii. Very deep > understanding of the roots of language in culture, interaction, > experience... Check out his book "Adam's Tongue." XXX ... and all his > other books... *** > Dr. Michael Tomasello > http://email.eva.mpg.de/—tomas/ > I do not know this guy at all. But his work on the social and > embodied foundations of language is brilliant, e.g. see his book > "Constructing a Language." *** > Kent Kemmish > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d38ICLNOW9jc > Was chief experimental biologist at Halcyon Molecular XX before it > went under last year. Knows more about fast genome sequencing than > probably anyone. Wants to make a swimming pool full of synthetic > organisms and probably could. No PhD, but that's sort of a quirk, > he's certainly a beyond-PhD-level lab researcher... *** > Dr. George Church > http://arep.med.harvard.edu/gmc/ > @Harvard ... I never met him, but he works on synthetic biology and Kent > knows him well says he's awesome *** > Dr. Ed Boyden > Will probably win the Nobel Prize for optogenetics. Lots of other > fascinating ideas as well. I don't know him well, we chatted briefly > when he keynoted at AGI-11 *** > Dr. Michael Rose > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljL_4-WnOsY > The guy who evolved the long-lived flies, whose genomes I've been > sequencing. A very deep thinker about evolution in all its aspects. > Used to do systems biology. Should win the Nobel Prize for his EFTA00715331 > various work on evolutionary theory, but I think that's quite > unlikely... *** > Dr. Aubrey de Grey > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iYpxRXIboQ > http://sens.org/sens-research/research-themes > An impressive lateral thinker about radical human life extension and > how to achieve it.... Read his book Ending Aging. He's been mostly > speechifying for the last few years, but still he's intellectually > brilliant as well.. *** > John Smart > hftp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbq3miYfVa4 > http://evodevouniverse.com/wiki/Main_Page > http://accelerating.org/articlesltranscensionhypothesis.html > Writing a book on Evo-Devo (Evolutionary-Developmental theory, as > applied to pretty much everything). Creator of the Transcension > Hypothesis XX and this futurist blog XX ... Ran a Singularity tent at > Burning Man several times (I guess you know what Burning Man XX is.... > Looks cool, but I never went due to spending most of my non-work time > with my kids, who until recently were too young for that sort of > thing...) *** > Dr. Aaron Sloman > http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/—axs/ > A friend of Minsky's, a 70-something cognitive science / math / AI guy > from the UK. I always thought he was a deeper thinker about the mind > than Marvin. Anyway I don't really know Marvin (though we had a > couple brief F2F chats), whereas Aaron and I have talked a fair bit. > He is an AGI skeptic; he thinks it's centuries away. But he's very > smart and interesting. > *** > Dr. Juergen Schmidhuber > http://www.idsia.ch/-juergen/ > Currently leads the IDSIA AI institute in Lugano, Switzerland, where EFTA00715332 > he hosted AGI-10.... Has done a huge variety of influential Al work > (though not quite as influential as he thinks, he tends to take credit > for inventing the whole field of AI...). A very funny, urbane European > type; and a good artist as well as scientist/mathematician.... Perhaps > the leading neural net researcher in the world currently.... > *** > Dr. Itamar Arel > you know him. While he's currently kinda distracted with his > successful trading operation, he's a brilliant engineering/AI mind... > *** > Dr. Ray Kurzweil > of course > ■s■ > Peter Diamandis > Creator of the X-Prize. I have met him once, don't know him well. > Very smart, broad-minded, great at Getting Things Done.... > *** > Martine Rothblatt > She's CEO of $2 billion pharma firm United Therapeutics. Formerly > Martin Rothblatt. Made her/his $$ initially in satellite radio. > She's a Hz-person not a scientist, but very insightful and visionary. > I know her slightly better than I know you, I guess. She's never > invested/donated in my projects, but we have a lot of mutual liking > and respect, and she may well do so when the time is right. She has > invested in David Hanson's robotics company, and some of Ray's > projects. She is a strange, but highly effective, mix of hippie, > lawyer and hard-nosed business-person.... She kept the same wife, Bina > after her sex change. David Hanson's Bina48 robot head looks like > Martine's wife Bina, and is pretty cool.... > *5* > Dr. Max More > http://www.maxmore.com > http://www.alcor.org > CEO of Alcor (the leading cryonics firm), and before that, arguably > the founding philosopher of transhumanism.... > *** > Dr. Natasha Vita-More > http://www.natasha.cc EFTA00715333 > http://flaunt.com/features/1 I 8/post-humans-are-people-too-natasha-vita-more > If you invite Max, inviting his wife Natasha Vita-More might be > apropos. She is a good artist & designer, a former fashion model (now > 60-something; Max is considerably younger than her), and a reasonably > interesting transhumanist thinker. She used to be fairly wealthy but > somehow lost it. And -- off the record -- she's a great example of > what a woman looks like after waaaayyy too much plastic surgery... *** > Dr. Jeffery Martin > A psych PhD with also a Harvard biz degree and lots of entrepreneurial > experience. He did an amazing 4-year study recently, psychologically > profiling a large number of "enlightened" people (people with > "persistent non-symbolic states" of consciousness)... I'll send you his > draft paper if you're curious... > nut > Dr. Gino Yu > Gino is the guy who got me set up in Hong Kong. He's married to a > rich HongKong-ese woman (who was formerly head of the HK Chamber of > Commerce, and is currently in jail for insider trading, but gets out > soon), whose dad owns some big manufacturing firm. Gino has an AI PhD > originally but now is more into theorizing about consciousness and > game design. I don't think he will ever do great research -- he is > too enlightened to bother -- but he is amazing at connecting people to > each other. I think he could help you down the road, get into contact > with more and more smart, interesting folks... > ■s■ > Dr. Leslie Allan Combs > http://www.sourceintegralis.org/articles.html > Jeffery's PhD advisor. Around 70 now and not as consistently > brilliant as he used to be. But Leslie (he used to go by Allan, now > switched to Leslie) understands the human mind and brain in all their > aspects phenomenally well...) > *** > Jaffray Woodriff > Founder of $5 billion hedge fund Quantitative Investment Management > (quantitative.com). Like you, Jeffery is not only a great financier > but a deep thinker about all aspects of science. His fund is based on > his own AI algorithms and is pretty successful. He invested about > $400K into my bioinformatics effort during 2002-2005. (That work has > not been dramatically successful commercially; but is making real > scientific progress and is still ongoing as you know.) Lives in > Charlottesville VA with young wife and 2 kids. Kind of a socially > conservative southern guy, on a personal level; although EFTA00715334 > intellectually quite adventurous. But s000000 smart.... You two would > have incredible conversations about finance & economy.... *** > RU Sirius (Ken Goffinan) > http://www.acceler8or.corn/tags/r-u-sinus/ > The premier journalist of cyber-culture in its early days, and still > going strong XX.... He must be 60+ by now. He edited Mondo 2000, > which came before Wired Magazine and was similar but a lot cooler and > more out-there... > *** > Dan Stoicescu (if we could get him) > Early-retired oncologist / biochemist / entrepreneur. High net worth > at least in the tens of millions US. Funds RU Sirius's online > magazine now, funded Humanity+ and my work minorly in the past.... Very > smart, deep thinker in all sorts of ways. Urbane European type of > guy. This is the "eccentric rich guy" in the anecdote about Cate > Hartley and weed that I rushed through near the end of our meeting. > He sometimes, but not always, answers my emails. > *** > Steve Jurvetson > I have met him once but don't know him well. He is the only famous > Silicon Valley VC with a deep understanding of advanced technology. > He created the nanotech investment boom singlehandedly. *** > Eric Drexler > http://e-drexler.com > Inventor of nanotechnology. Still brilliant. I bumped into him > recently at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford, right before > the AGI-12 conference > *** > Ralph Merkle > http://www.merkle.com > Inventor of the medical nanotechnology concept. Claims if he had > US$10M he could make huge progress toward creating a molecular > assembler (the holy grail of nanotech). I don't know enough practical > nanotech to evaluate his claims, but he's certainly brilliant and > interesting. *** > David Brin EFTA00715335 > http://www.davidbrin.com/transparency.html > Famous science fiction writer. His nonfiction book "The Transparent > Society" about the end of privacy, is a true classic for the ages. > He's not a technologist, but the deepest-thinking socio-political > commentator I know of. • *** > Jamais Cascio > http://www.worldchanging.cotn/bios/jamais.html > Similar profile to David Brin but without the science fiction writing. > Very deep thinker and good writer about the future of technology and > its social and political implications. I disagree with him a majority > of the time, as he's way more conservative than me; but he's smart and > interesting. > ns > Amara Angelica > http://lcurzweilai.net > Ray Kurzweil's second-in-command, who manages the kurzweilai.net > website, and has an amazing breadth of knowledge about all things > future-technology.... Way back when, she wrote for RU's magazine Mondo > 2000, under the pen name "Queen Mu" > tic* > Dr. Damien Broderick > Best known as a science fiction writer, Damien also wrote a book > called "The Spike" in XX, which was basically just like Kurzweil's > "The Singularity is Near", but too far ahead of its time (and > better-written).... Has edited some other books on futurist tech.. *** > Heather Knight (no Dr. yet, but she's a PhD student currently) > http://www.marilynmonrobot.com > She's done a lot of practical work on robotics, focused on getting > robots to interact interestingly with people.... I wouldn't call her an > incredibly deep thinker, but she's technically solid as well as > extremely nice to look at (XX), so if we want a little bit of gender > balance she's a great choice. Very sweet, nice girl, as well as > super-clever... *** > Joichi Ito > Well you probably know Joi better than I do by now, due to his recent > role with MIT Media Lab.... He's actually a quite interesting thinker EFTA00715336 > as well as a jet-setter, VC, etc. I have only met with him a few > times, and we haven't talked at great length. But it would be great > to engage him with AGI a little more. > *** > Dr. Wlodek Duch > http://www.is.umk.pU--duch/ > The king of AI in Poland ... loads of work on neural nets and > neuroscience ... currently he's spending much of his time in Singapore > trying, as he puts it, to "launch a neurocognitive revolution" there ... *** > Dr. Kwabena Boahen > http://www.stanford.edu/group/brainsinsilicon/boahen.html > I don't know this guy, but he's at Stanford and his work on > neuromorphic hardware chips seems pretty amazing. From what I can > tell it's better than what IBM is doing on the DARPA-funded Synapse > project (which gets a lot of media attention, though Boahen's work > gets much less so). He is a black African btw, though based in the > US... *** > Getnet Aseffa > This is a friend of mine from Ethiopia. For his day job he designs > and builds (driving and flying) robots for the Ethiopian military, to > surveil their border with Sudan... He also gives seminars on the > Singularity in Addis Ababa (maybe 7-8 per years), and gets 700-800 > people to attend each time. He's young, maybe 28, and kind of naive > about the world outside Africa. But he knows Africa very well, and > has a great vision of the future of technology... A sharp mind with > great ambition; a memorable character... > *** > Dr. Randal Koene > http://www.carboncopies.org > A neuroscientist, who also did genomics at Halcyon Molecular before it > folded, and is now the leading serious scientific exponent of mind > uploading (see XX, and see his papers in the Special Issue on Mind > Uploading XX that I edited). His efforts are currently funded by > Dmitry Itskov, the Russian tech entrepreneur who funded the Russia > 2045 initiative (premised on the idea that the Singularity will be > launched in 2045 in Russia...) *** > Luke Nosek > Luke is a VC not a scientist, but he's done some visionary EFTA00715337 > investments, mainly Halcyon Molecular (which turned out badly > business-wise, but was an amazing collection of smart people). He is > deeply enmeshed in Silicon Valley's social networks, yet also > understands the Singularity and advanced technology. In the last few > years he's been deeply into Zen. He kinda (I don't know how hard) > pushed Founders Fund (his VC firm) invest in my or Itamar's technology > but failed.... Luke works with Peter Thiel, who would be interesting to > pull into a gathering also; but Luke is a lot more likely to come than > Peter.... (Peter may be a bit smarter, but Luke is also smart and is > less of a dick...) *** > Jaan Tallinn > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_otUMISAcA > One of the three founders of Skype. He funds the Cambridge research > unit devoted to studying whether AGI will destroy the world and how to > stop it.... I don't share his paranoid attitude about AI, but I think > he's a good guy and an interesting mind... > *** > Dr. Stuart Armstrong > hftp://www.fhi.ox.ac.ukJour_staff/research/stuart_armstrong > Recent post assessing Kurzweil's predictions: > http://lesswrong.corn/lw/gbi/assessing_kurzweil_the_results/ > If you wanted a representative of Oxford's Future of Humanity > Institute (who also worries full-time about Al destroying the world), > I'd choose Stuart, a young math PhD who is very broad-minded and > smart. He's a bit more fun and dynamic than his boss Nick Bostrom, > though Nick is more famous.... Definitely has the old-school British > charm ;) > *** > Dr. Paul Werbos > http://www.werbos.com > Invented some fundamental neural net stuff a long time ago. Paul is > now an NSF program manager, and worries a lot about advanced > technology killing off humanity. He has a better understanding of US > science funding and its relation to geopolitics than anybody else on > the planet. Also comprehensive knowledge of energy and space science. > The best of DC science I would say... *** > Dr. Francis Heylighen > http://globalbraininstitute.org > Head of the Global Brain Institute at the Free University of Brussels EFTA00715338 > (which btw is funded by Yuri Milner, a Russian Internet entrepreneur) ••* > Dr. Bryant Villeponteau > A 70+ biopharma guy, who discovered important stuff about telomerase > and aging at Geron, decades ago (and was named Scientist of the Year > for this). He is the guy doing the pharmaceutical portion of the work > with the long-lived flies (in my project with Michael Rose).... More > of a traditional biopharma researcher than a 2Ist-century bio > visionary -- but WOW, what a great traditional biopharma researcher!! > *** > Dirk Aerts > http://anciv.orWa/aerts_d_l > At the Free University of Brussels. He has pioneered the seemingly > crazy, yet still interesting, idea that quantum logic should be used > to reason about some classical systems (not just human brains but also > some fairly simple classical systems, all depending on the relation of > the observer to the system). I have emailed with him but never met > him; he seems a bit reclusive.... But such creative research !!! > And that's probably enough for now... ;-) > ... ben Ben Goertzel, PhD http://goertzel.org "My humanity is a constant self-overcoming" -- Friedrich Nietzsche EFTA00715339