Hi fellow researcher here. I think first of all that one doesn't need to know all of the relevant parts from Neuroscience, Psychology, Machine Learning, Philosophy and CS because usually research is built through teams and connections. The width and breadth of human knowledge is such that it's almost impossible to get an expect, especially in an area as complex as AGI.
I'd very much love to know your ideas on how Academia could be revolutionized. I'm also trying to get into AGI but sadly there're no research centers where I live. I think you need to get a position in a research center if you hope to focus full time on it and get money to pay the bills. For that a masters may not be enough and you need to aim for a doctorate at the very least in a related research field such as computer science or neurology. On Thursday, 25 June 2020 10:24:54 UTC-5, Shubhamkar Ayare wrote: > > Hi! > > This isn't very much about OpenCog as much as pursuing AGI in general. And > I don't know of a better place to seek advice on this. > > I'm, currently, a third year (entering fourth year) undergrad student > majoring in Computer Science. For long, I've been interested in AGI, and > some time last year, I had decided that I'll focus on financial > independence first until the age of 30-35 and then work full-time on AGI. > In recent days, I'm considering to revise that decision - in my limited > understanding, constructing AGI needs at least one person to have a broad > yet deep background. Cognitive Science seems to provide the breadth. Plus, > if previously, I had about 30 years of my life to work on AGI, I get 10 > more years by pursuing a relevant Masters. > > So, my doubts are the following - > > - Can an AGI be made without there existing a single person knowing the > relevant parts from Neuroscience, Psychology, Machine Learning, Philosophy > - and perhaps some more relevant parts from Computer Science? I'd guess > this question is impossible to answer, since we don't have an AGI yet; but > from the perspective of how teams work - does it become necessary for at > least one person to know the relevant parts from the various fields, so as > to be able to coordinate the team's efforts? I myself don't have much (any > perhaps) experience with leading teams; and hence, I wanted to seek > experienced opinions. In essence, is the "broad yet deep" background too > much to aim for? > > - Are there any opinions about whether a Masters in Cognitive Science is > worthwhile, or would I be better off pursuing the Masters in something more > specific? > > - In case I'm better off pursuing the Masters in something else, is it > feasible to just do it from online courses? I've a strong bias towards > online self-directed learning - and I want to learn things without being > much involved in the research itself. For instance, I am learning machine > learning, but I do not want to invest myself in ML research. I'm also not > very convinced by the way academia exists today in the age of internet, and > think it can be improved. This goes off on a tangent though. For > self-learning AGI itself, there exist a ton of resources at > agi-society.org <http://www.agi-society.org/resources/> (the links seem > broken in recent days though; internet-archive helps); but I'd be very > dubious if studying that would help me pay my bills. > > Any input would be highly appreciated. > Thank you! > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "opencog" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/opencog/99390c9b-d810-45e5-be0d-687738acb1d6o%40googlegroups.com.
