I agree with Mark. The reason the readers of this forum should seek to control AGI development is to ensure friendly behavior, rather than leaving this responsibility to an Evil Company or to some military organization. With human labor removed as a constraint on our system's economic growth, unimaginable wealth will become universally available. I believe that the AGI will be the custodian (owner) of this vast new wealth, not some humans. My argument is that human owned wealth is currently of two forms - (1) the result of human labor and (2) rent-producing wealth from some asset. In case (1) the AGI can substitute itself for the human labor and drive the asset market price to zero. In case (2) only human-owned natural resource asserts (e.g. an oil field) present a problem for the AGI which has to develop some new technology to substitute for the resource (e.g. AGI-owned electric vehicles).
Therefore I think that the idea of getting rich by controlling AGI development is self-defeating because post-AGI everyone will be vastly richer (i.e. better off) than before, and that an AGI makes a better custodian of the capital than any human. In my own case, Microsoft could not buy me out because there is nothing to buy. The Texai software and knowledge content will be open source, and owned collectively by its contributors and by humans it befriends. -Steve Stephen L. Reed Artificial Intelligence Researcher http://texai.org/blog http://texai.org 3008 Oak Crest Ave. Austin, Texas, USA 78704 512.791.7860 ----- Original Message ---- From: Mark Waser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 8:09:56 PM Subject: Re: [agi] Microsoft Launches Singularity You're thinking too small. The AGI will distribute itself. And money is likely to be: rapidly deflated, then replaced with a new, alternate currency that truly values talent and effort (rather than just playing with the money supply -- aka interest, commissions, inheritances, etc.) while everyone's basic needs (most particularly water, food, shelter, energy, education, and health care) are provided for free So your brilliant arbitrage to become rich is unlikely to be of much value just a few years later. ----- Original Message ----- From: Aki Iskandar To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 7:19 PM Subject: Re: [agi] Microsoft Launches Singularity I agree with your statement, "if someone does manage to produce a working AGI it's probably game over for software engineering and software companies as we know them today." But another equally likely scenario is that Microsoft will buy it - and not reverse engineer it. Perhaps they can't reverse engineer it. I can certainly see whatever group creates it, will probably sell it to a company with great distribution power - like Microsoft, and Google. This is a strong case of maybe why these software giants are not interested in creating AGI themselves - but they have feelers out there, and are ready to snap it up. It's definitely a race to achieve it for many. If I was lucky enough to be part of a group tat created it - I would try to persuade the other members to sell out (for HUGE bucks) - because companies like Microsoft have the distribution problem licked. A 20 way multi-billion dollar split is not too shabby. agi | Archives | Modify Your Subscription ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=98558129-0bdb63 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
