Peter, After reading “Essentials of General Intelligence: The Direct Path to AGI,” the A2I2 website, and your personal website (with the exception of the articles on the CRONS diet, which I’ve been following for several years), I was pleased to discover that we share virtually identical approaches to AGI, ethics, and life in general. As soon as I became familiar with your work, I immediately felt that my desire to help usher in an extropian singularity was best served by the following goal: to collaborate with A2I2 in whatever capacity possible.
My primary interest is in cognitive science, especially theories of natural language acquisition, motivation and emotion, understanding of which I feel is critical to the quest for “friendly” SI. A brief personal background: I recently graduated with high honors from the University of Texas, with a BA in English and a minor in Philosophy. I entered my undergraduate with a full-ride National Merit Scholarship and 55 hours of advanced placement credit, which gave me the freedom to explore a wide range of intellectual disciplines. I entered the Engineering Honors Program and planned to pursue aerospace engineering, but a freshman seminar entitled “The Ethics and Politics of Everyday Life” shook my philosophical foundations and prompted me to pursue the liberal arts. As an undergraduate, I gained a solid foundation in philosophy of mind, as well as an introduction to neuroanatomy. However, the bulk of my knowledge of cognitive science has come from independent study. The following books should give you a rough idea of my intellectual background as well as the depth and scope of my relevant knowledge: Language in Thought and Action – SI Hayakawa How We Believe – Michael Shermer Consciousness Explained – Daniel C. Dennett At Home in the Universe – The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity The Age of Spiritual Machines – Ray Kurzweil The Quantum Brain – Jeffrey Satinover The Mind Within the Net – Manfred Spitzer The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities - Gilles Fauconnier, Mark Turner Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence – Andy Clark The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness – Antonio Damasio Neural Network Perspectives on Cognition and Adaptive Robotics – Anthony Browne I look forward to learning the details of your AGI implementation, especially the “introspection/control probe,” which seems so crucial, but which you gloss over in “Essentials…” I sincerely hope that I can be of some service to A2I2. I am willing to drop everything, move to LA, work full-time (probably 60+ hours a week, as this stuff feels more like fun than work to me), and I am already accustomed to meager accommodation. Optimally yours, Owen OBrien --- Peter Voss <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Here is a review and status report on our project: > http://adaptiveai.com/news/index.htm > > We are again actively looking for (at least) two > additional LA-based team > members. Contact me for details. > mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Towards Increased Intelligence! > > Peter > > ------- > To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily > deactivate your subscription, > please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
