Good question. I and Ben are drafting an introductory chapter for the AGIRI Workshop Proceedings, and in it we want to list the major objections to AGI research, then reject them one by one. Now the list includes the following:
1. "AGI is impossible" --- such as the opinions from Lucas, Dreyfus, and Penrose 2. "There is no such a thing as general intelligence" --- psychological arguments against any "g factor", and AI arguments against any "general problem solver" 3. "General-purpose systems are not as good as special-purpose ones" --- in terms of performance, efficiency, etc. 4. "AGI is already included in the current AI" --- "Since X plays an important role in intelligence, studying X contributes to the study of intelligence in general", where X can be replaced by reasoning, learning, planning, perceiving, acting, etc. 5. "It is too early to work on AGI" --- we should wait for more results from individual AI sub-fields, brain research, hardware innovations, ... 6. "AGI is nothing but hype" --- no AGI claim has got any supporting evidence in history 7. "AGI research is not fruitful" --- it is hard to get result, support, reward, ... 8. "AGI is dangerous" --- Terminator, Matrix, ... Anything else? Pei On 9/13/06, Joshua Fox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I'd like to raise a FAQ: Why is so little AGI research and development being done? The answers of Goertzel, Moravec, Kurzweil, Voss, and others all agree on this (no need to repeat them here), and I've read Are We Spiritual Machines, but I come away unsatisfied. (Still, if there is nothing more to say on this question, please do the AGIRI-equivalent of sniping this thread immediately.) I respect existing AGI researchers, but I am surprised that more members of the "establishment" are not on board. I just can't believe that , for example, almost all leading computer-science/cognitive-science professors are herd-following closed-minded stuck-in-the-muds. The leading universities do have their share of creative, free-thinking, inquisitive people, and the same goes for other parts of the "establishment". To clarify what I am looking for, I should describe a recent conversation. I spoke to an open-minded and intelligent friend who has a PhD from, and does research in, a top university. The research is in exactly the sort of technologies used in brain-scanning. I asked him about Kurzweil's trends on the accelerating advance of human-brain-scanning technologies. He did not agree with Kurzweil's conclusions, and explained why. Likewise, I'm looking for input from a open-minded, intelligent, computer/cognitive scientist (who does not strongly support AGI research) on the above question. I don't know where to find them, so perhaps someone on this list could role-play one. What would s/he say if I asked "Why do you not pursue or support AGI research? Even if you believe that implementation is a long way off, surely academia can study, and has studied for thousands of years, impractical but interesting pie-in-the-sky topics, including human cognition? And AGI, if nothing else, models (however partially and imperfectly with our contemporary technology) essential aspects of some philosophically very important problems." Thanks, Joshua ________________________________ This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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