YKY,
Which is a bigger motivator -- charity/altruism, or $$? For me it's $$,
and charity is of lower priority. And let's not forget that self-interested
individuals in a free market can bring about progress, at least according to
Adam Smith.
A suggestion, if you really are motivated by $$
On 6/6/07, Joel Pitt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
YKY,
A suggestion, if you really are motivated by $$ and getting rich, why
not focus on other much easier problems that will still potentially
make you bucket-loads money?
I have this slightly crazy idea of selling the project's AGI prototype
This is the kind of control freak tendency that makes many startup
ventures untenable; if you cannot give up some control (and I will grant
such tendencies are not natural), you might not be the best person to be
running such a startup venture.
Yup, my suggestion of giving control to five
.listbox.com
Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2007 9:08 PM
Subject: Re: [agi] Open AGIConsortium
Because, unless they take a majority share, they want toknow who it is
they're dealing with... i.e. who is controlling thecompany
One of the most important things an investor looks
It will b e very hard at that point to hold up in court, given that the AGI
must choose who gets what, cause there sure aint no precedent for a
non-legal-entity like an AI for making legal decisions.
Will have to have it declared a person first.
There is nothing necessary to hold up in
On Jun 5, 2007, at 10:01 AM, Mark Waser wrote:
There is nothing necessary to hold up in court. The
trustees/trustworthy owners are taking the action. The fact that
their decision was based upon the ramblings of an AGI is entirely
irrelevant as far as the legal system is concerned.
What distinguishes this venture from the hundreds of other ones that
are frankly indistinguishable from yours? What is that killer thing that you
can convincingly demonstrate you have that no one else can? Without
that, your chances are poor on many different levels.
I'm trying to find
That sounds like a contributor lawsuit waiting to happen outside of the
contributors contractually agreeing to have zero rights, and who would
want to sign such a contract?
And there's the rub. We've gotten into a situation where it's almost
literally impossible to honestly set up a
Have we not decided that impossible yet?
You can delay it, but not prevent it, once it hits the mainstream.
The best way to delay it, is to have the smallest group, with the tightest
restrictions in place, which goes against the grain of having a large mostly
open groups that have been put
concerning myself about the time before that point.
- Original Message -
From: James Ratcliff
To: agi@v2.listbox.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2007 2:53 PM
Subject: Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
Have we not decided that impossible yet?
You can delay it, but not prevent
You may be assuming flexibility in the securities and tax regulations
than actually exists now. They've tightened things up quite a bit over
the last ten years.
I don't think so. I'm pretty aware of the current conditions.
Equity and pseudo-equity (like incentive stock options -- ISOs)
I think he's just saying to
-- make a pool of N shares allocated to technical founders. Call this the
Technical Founders Pool
-- allocate M options on these shares to each technical founder, but with a
vesting condition that includes the condition that only N of the options
will ever be vested
One possible method of becoming an AGI tycoon might be to have the
main core of code as conventional open source under some suitable
licence, but then charge customers for the service of having that core
system customised to solve particular tasks. The licence might permit
use of the code for
Mark, have you looked at phantom stock plans? These offer some of the
same incentives as equity ownership without giving an actual equity
stake or options, allowing grantees the chance to benefit from
appreciation in the organization's value without the owners actually
relinquishing ownership.
of
viewpoint, difference in possible contributions much less being able to
accurately assess that, etc.)
- Original Message -
From: Benjamin Goertzel
To: agi@v2.listbox.com
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 7:54 AM
Subject: Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
I think he's just
Mark, have you looked at phantom stock plans?
Keith,
I have not since I was unaware of them. Thank you very much for the
pointer. I will investigate. (Now this is why I spend so much time
on-line -- If only there were some almost-all-knowing being that could take
what you're trying to
On 04/06/07, Mark Waser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
One possible method of becoming an AGI tycoon might be to have the
main core of code as conventional open source under some suitable
licence, but then charge customers for the service of having that core
system customised to solve particular
One possible method of becoming an AGI tycoon might be to have the
main core of code as conventional open source under some suitable
licence, but then charge customers for the service of having that core
system customised to solve particular tasks.
Uh, I don't think you're getting this. Any
On Jun 4, 2007, at 4:35 AM, Mark Waser wrote:
This kinds of things are pretty strictly regulated now, and
waiting until the end to contract a stake to your contributors
would be a disaster for them in terms of both their return and/or
tax liability,
If you're waiting until the end to
The difference is significant: the real return between the best and worst
can easily be 2x.
Given that this is effectively a venture capital moon-shot as opposed to a
normal savings plan type investment, a variance of 2x is not as much as it
initially seems (and we would, of course, do
On Jun 4, 2007, at 8:07 AM, Mark Waser wrote:
(Depending on your specific type of interest in a company, an
argument can be made that warrants can be more valuable than
equity.)
Warrants have the same control problems as options do -- magnified
by the fact that they are transferable.
my 2 cents worth (both to Mark YKY):
think of the people you are trying to co-opt onto the project. Some of us (most
mid-lifers) have *some* income stream (regular job or otherwise) but are
extremely committed to AGI as one of our main purposes of our life. Ideally we
would want a rich donor
Hi Jean-Paul,
I'm not sure that I understand your point but let me try to answer it
anyways (and you'll tell me if I missed :-).
I qualify as one of those mid-lifers but, due to impending college
expenses, I NEED my current non-AGI income stream. I'm not hugely motivated
by money
OK... just a few quick points to add to this:
1. *Inclusion of code*. I believe AGI would *best* be achieved by a
combination of theory and craft. A joint project / consortium should
actively encourage people to experiment with AGI code. Also, pure theory is
very dry, having code will
4. *Accept members as broadly as possible*. A typical AGI company
usually interviews potential candidates, sign NDAs, and then see if their
skills align with the company's project. After such a screening
many candidates with good ideas may not be hired. The consortium is to
remedy this by
One way in which you might be able to make use of many members who may
be interested in AGI but lack the background knowledge or programming
skills might be to develop scripting languages or IDEs which would
allow volunteers (payed or otherwise) to generate training scenarios
or evaluate test
Yeah, we often try to get newbies involved with the AGISim open-source 3D
sim world project...
But that project is not yet mature enough to be friendly to anyone who is
not a pretty good programmer. Just getting AGISim to compile, at the
moment, is kind of a bitch...
-- Ben
On 6/3/07, Bob
It needs a Visual Studio 2005 Solution file in the source distro. Just
having that would offer much encouragement to would-be developers.
Does this thing actually talk to Novamente BTW? Though sockets? What's it
doing?
John
From: Benjamin Goertzel [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
But
On 6/3/07, John G. Rose [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
It needs a Visual Studio 2005 Solution file in the source distro. Just
having that would offer much encouragement to would-be developers…
Well, it's an open-source project, so feel free to create such a file ;-)
[As I use OSX and Ubuntu, it
On 6/3/07, Bob Mottram [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
One way in which you might be able to make use of many members who may
be interested in AGI but lack the background knowledge or programming
skills might be to develop scripting languages or IDEs which would
allow volunteers (payed or otherwise) to
YKY and Mark Waser ...
About innovative organizational structures for AGI projects, let me
suggest the following
Perhaps you could
A)
make the AGI codebase itself open-source, but using a license other than
GPL, which
-- makes the source open
-- makes the source free for noncommercial use
On 6/4/07, Benjamin Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
A)
make the AGI codebase itself open-source, but using a license other than
GPL, which
-- makes the source open
-- makes the source free for noncommercial use
-- gives the rights to control commercialization of the codebase to the
For me, wanting to make a thinking machine is a far stronger motivator
than wanting to get rich.
Of course, I'd like to get rich, but getting rich is quite ordinary and
boring
compared to launching a positive Singularity ;-p
Being rich for the last N years before Singularity is better than not
as the profound flaws in my suggestion?
(And TIA if you're willing to do so)
Mark
- Original Message -
From: Benjamin Goertzel
To: agi@v2.listbox.com
Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2007 1:57 PM
Subject: Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
YKY and Mark Waser ...
About
On Jun 3, 2007, at 3:13 PM, YKY (Yan King Yin) wrote:
The problem is that I still want to get rich, and to make XYZ a non-
profit would be dishonest and may result in some awkward
contradictions later. (Unless my personality changes... which is
also possible).
To put it really simply,
your suggestion is basically a dictatorship by you ;-)
Oh! I am horribly offended.:-o
That reaction is basically why I was planning on grabbing a bunch of other
trustworthy people to serve as joint owners (as previously mentioned).
without any clear promise of compensation in future
No
YKY wrote:
The problem is that I still want to get rich, and to make
XYZ a non-profit would be dishonest and may result in some
awkward contradictions later. (Unless my personality
changes... which is also possible).
You might get rich by writing a general software engine to make this
So, the share allocation is left undetermined, to be determined by the AGI
someday?
That's what I'm saying currently. The reality is that my project actually has
a clear intermediate product that would cleanly allow all current contributors
to determine an intermediate distribution -- but
You might get rich by writing a general software engine to make this
consortium idea work -- and it will take software, some very complex and
secure software to track and value the contributions of lots of people.
where
people or companies can form *any* sort of idea consortium they like
Well my feeling is that the odd compensation scheme, even if very clearly
presented, would turn off a VC or even an angel investor ...
The only thing that is odd about the compensation scheme is how you're
determining the allocation of the non-VC/investor shares/profits.
Why
Because, unless they take a majority share, they want to know who it is
they're dealing with... i.e. who is controlling the company
One of the most important things an investor looks at is THE PEOPLE who are
controlling the company, and in your scheme, it is not clear who that is...
Yes, you
PM
*Subject:* Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
Because, unless they take a majority share, they want to know who it is
they're dealing with... i.e. who is controlling the company
One of the most important things an investor looks at is THE PEOPLE who
are controlling the company, and in your scheme
On Jun 3, 2007, at 6:20 PM, Benjamin Goertzel wrote:
So you are going to make a special set of corporate bylaws that
disentangle shares from control?
Hmmm...
Something like: the initial trustworthy owners are given
temporary trusteeship over the shares, but are then bound to
distribute
On Jun 3, 2007, at 5:52 PM, Mark Waser wrote:
So, the share allocation is left undetermined, to be determined
by the AGI someday?
That's what I'm saying currently. The reality is that my project
actually has a clear intermediate product that would cleanly allow
all current
On Jun 1, 2007, at 2:33 PM, YKY (Yan King Yin) wrote:
How about some brainstorming...?
My proposal is this:
1. People post their ideas onto a wiki and discuss them, while
carefully keeping a record of who has said what. Also, each person
suggests an amount of how much the contribution
On Jun 1, 2007, at 4:07 PM, Bob Mottram wrote:
Although I'm an open source fan I don't think I would ever sign up to
the things you're proposing. Forcing developers to pay a fee before
they use your system simply ensures that no developers will join your
project.
Yep. Calling such a
On 6/2/07, Benjamin Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
What you are suggesting, sounds like a mess that would not work...
One problem with your suggestion is that the assignment of credit
problem is really really hard. You are trying to solve it via a scheme of
collective contribution ratings,
On 02/06/07, YKY (Yan King Yin) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
the market). Anyway I propose to remedy this problem by fixing the license
price of all patents we acquire, by applying a fixed formula based on
individuals' assessment of their contributions.
From having worked on open source projects
On 6/2/07, Samantha Atkins [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
3. Suppose someone (a developer) wants to take a result and implement
it? The developer will have to pay a license fee to the contributors, the
fee being proportional to the total estimated worth of its constituents.
A result? A group
On 6/2/07, Bob Mottram [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
From having worked on open source projects previously I think you
could be entering a world of pain here, because who assesses
individual contributions and upon what basis do you divide up the
cash. You'll have developers wasting a lot of time
to the contributor) if appropriate.
How's that?
- Original Message -
From: YKY (Yan King Yin)
To: agi@v2.listbox.com
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 5:33 PM
Subject: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
How about some brainstorming...?
My proposal is this:
1. People post their ideas onto
On Saturday 02 June 2007 04:35:57 am Samantha Atkins wrote:
On Jun 1, 2007, at 4:07 PM, Bob Mottram wrote:
Although I'm an open source fan I don't think I would ever sign up to
the things you're proposing. Forcing developers to pay a fee before
they use your system simply ensures
Mark Waser writes:
. The project will be incorporated. The intent of the corporation is to 1)
protect the AGI and 2) to reward those who created it commensurate with their
contributions.Interesting setup. I fear that this and YKY's project will
have difficulty attracting contributors,
On 6/2/07, Derek Zahn [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
For a for-profit AGI project I suggest the following definition of
intelligence:
The ability to create information-based objects of economic value.
What about:
The ability to create information-based objects generating income.
This is less
Lukasz Stafiniak writes:
What about: The ability to create information-based objects generating
income.
Sure. General intelligence would then refer to the range of object types it
can create. information-based could be omitted but it saves argument about
whether a chair factory should be
Interesting setup. I fear that this and YKY's project will have difficulty
attracting contributors, as AGI folk appear to be rather cranky
individualists, but I hope it works out for you! Even though this
discussion (and the spinoff software engineering vs algorithms pissing
contest) is
On 6/2/07, Mark Waser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
1. People post their ideas into some layered set of systems that records
them permanently (a wiki or three is fine for ideas initially as long as it
maintains complete histories but code needs to go somewhere better
protected). Self-suggested
I hope to create a project where members feel *happy* in it, instead of
like a torture chamber.
Please note, successful commercial companies and open-source projects do
seem to feature happy participants ...
I am in favor of innovative project structures, but so far as I can tell,
the
How are you going to estimate the worth of contributions *before* we have
AGI? I mean, people need to get paid in the interim.
For my project, don't count on getting paid in the short-term interim. Where's
the money going to come from? Do you expect your project to pay people in the
On Jun 2, 2007, at 10:37 AM, Mark Waser wrote:
If the corporation does have an influx of cash (due to an
intermediate success), a consensus of active contributors would
have to decide how much to share out and how much to retain as seed
money (and I would push real hard for the majority,
On 6/3/07, Benjamin Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I hope to create a project where members feel *happy* in it, instead of
like a torture chamber.
Please note, successful commercial companies and open-source projects do
seem to feature happy participants ...
I am in favor of innovative
I'll keep thinking... Basically what we need is a simple mechanism for
people to share their secret ideas and increase collaboration, and yet don't
lose credit for their contributions.
YKY
--
It's a hard problem. Even within Novamente, which is a small group
On 6/3/07, Mark Waser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
For my project, don't count on getting paid in the short-term interim.
Where's the money going to come from? Do you expect your project to pay
people in the interim?
$$$
Yes, I believe there're people capable of
Yes, I believe there're people capable of producing income-generating stuff
in the interim. I can't predict how the project would evolve, but am
optimistic.
Ask Ben about how much that affects a project . . . .
If you flexibly enter contracts with partners on an individual basis, that's
On 6/2/07, Mark Waser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Yes, I believe there're people capable of producing income-generating
stuff in the interim. I can't predict how the project would evolve, but am
optimistic.
Ask Ben about how much that affects a project . . . .
The need to create commercial
How about some brainstorming...?
My proposal is this:
1. People post their ideas onto a wiki and discuss them, while carefully
keeping a record of who has said what. Also, each person suggests an amount
of how much the contribution is worth. If the amount is outrageous people
can make
Ownership of things and establishing who owns what seems to be very
important to humans. One time I bought my two young nephews identical
toys, and then subsequently watched them fighting over who owned which
toy - even though they were exactly alike. What does it mean to own
something, and do
Hmmm...
Proprietary works.
Open source works.
Each has their flaws, but both basically do work for generating software via
collective human effort...
What you are suggesting, sounds like a mess that would not work...
One problem with your suggestion is that the assignment of credit problem
My thoughts on the idea of an open AGI project:
1. I think a testbed for AGI already exists, it's called the job
market. We should help baby AGIs find work in real job markets.
I think there might be some places on the internet trying to find
applications of traditional kinds of AIs, but I'm not
From: Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED]
1. I think a testbed for AGI already exists, it's called the job
market. We should help baby AGIs find work in real job markets.
I think there might be some places on the internet trying to find
applications of traditional kinds of AIs, but I'm not sure
Hi all,
I'm curious about the general sentiments that people have
about the appropriate level of openness for an AGI project.
My mind certainly isn't made up on the issue and I can see
reasons for going either way. If a single individual or
small group of people made a sudden break through in
of the implementation (including the memory structure and
control strategy), though the basic ideas behind them are already published.
Pei
- Original Message -
From: Shane Legg [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 4:42 AM
Subject: [agi] Open AGI?
Hi all,
I'm
distributed (mostly evolutionary learning).
-- Ben G
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behalf Of Shane
Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 9:04 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [agi] Open AGI?
Hi Ben,
I'm not really interested in open source
I understand that you are not specifically talking about
open source, but as the auther of several open source
visualization systems (including Vis5D, which was probably
the first open source visualization system) I want to
point out that there is a real opportunity for someone who
starts an open
Bill,
I'd definitely see creating the first open source AGI system as a big
opportunity.
Do you see any overwhelming risks in making AGI technology available
to everyone including malcontents and criminals? Would the rest of
society be able to handle these risks if they also had access to
Shane,
In your first posting on the open AGI subject you mentioned that you
were concerned about the risk on the one hand of:
* inordinate power being concentrated in the hands of the controllers
of the first advanced AGI
* power to do serious harm being made widely available if AGI
Shane wrote:
I see that you run sort of an intermediate approach here, as does Pei.
Peter takes a more closed approach with A2I2, which probably reflects
his background in business rather than academia. Others like James
Rogers take a very closed approach; in fact I don't think I have ever
PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf
Of Bill Hibbard
Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 10:26 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [agi] Open AGI?
I understand that you are not specifically talking about
open source, but as the auther of several open source
visualization systems (including Vis5D
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