I see a singularity, if it occurs at all, to be at least a hundred years out.
To use Kurzweil's language, you're not thinking in "exponential time" ;-)
The artificial intelligence problem is much more difficult than most people imagine it to be.
"Most people" have close to zero basis to even think about the topic in a useful way. And most professional, academic or industry AI folks are more pessimistic than you are.
But what is it about Novamente that will allow it in a few years time to comprehend its own computer code and intelligently re-write it (especially a system as complex as Novamente)?
I'm not going to try to summarize the key ideas underlying Novamente in an email. I have been asked to write a nontechnical overview of the NM approach to AGI for a popular website, and may find time for it later this month... if so, I'll post a link to this list. Obviously, I think I have solved some fundamental issues related to implementing general cognition on contemporary computers. I believe the cognitive mechanisms designed for NM will be adequate to lead to the emergence within the system of the key emergent structures of mind (self, will, focused awareness), and from these key emergent structures comes the capability for ever-increasing intelligence. Specific timing estimates for NM are hard to come by -- especially because of funding vagaries (currently progress is steady but slow for this reason), and because of the general difficulty of estimating the rate of progress of any large-scale software project .. not to mention various research uncertainties. But 100 years is way off. -- Ben ----- 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/?list_id=303
