Thank you a lot for the valuable list of people. I'll try to get in contact with them, see what they think.
In regards to funding, there must be a financial source in our society that provides funding to crazy new risky ideas. I would imagine academia is such a source. If I looked for a venture capitalist for a start-up, I'm not sure how I could build a business model around AGI research. Why is there so little support for AGI, anyways? I had always imagined governments racing to create a digital mind. Is it just so hard organizations don't believe it is possible at the moment? As if there aren't other hundreds of really hard things to do in science and engineering today *with* support. Also, why do AGI enthusiasts leave academia? Where do they go? Thank you. On Monday, April 26, 2021 at 6:27:47 PM UTC-4 Ben Goertzel wrote: > I'd say a lot of us who were in academia and were into AGI ended up > ... leaving academia ... > > However there are still some hard-core AGI-ers in academic positions > supervising students, e.g. (an incomplete list), Kristinn Thorisson in > Iceland, Claes Strannegård in Sweden, Pei Wang at Temple U in > Philadelphia, Paul Rosenbloom at USC, Juergen Schmidhuber at IDSIA > .... Of course each of these folks has their own AGI approach / > predilections and. may prefer students who want to work in accordance > w/ their ideas/interests, that sort of thing becomes an individual > discussion btw student and potential advisor... > > There are so far as I know no academic departments with strong AGI > "programmes" -- there are just isolated AGI-oriented profs like the > ones I listed above > > Of course there are also many other profs out there interested in AGI > but doing research on other related but narrower stuff. E.g. my son's > PhD supervisor, Josef Urban, is an AGI enthusiast but as a researcher > he focuses on ML for automated theorem proving. Could a prof of this > ilk (AGI-interested and AGI-enthusiastic but not AGI-focused) > supervise a research student doing AGI? quite possibly it would depend > on the case... but would they have scholarship $$ for a student doing > AGI is a different question... > > Of course doing a PhD on a CS / cog-sci topic related to , but not > directly constituting, AGI can still be valuable for advancing > yourself as an AGI researcher though.. that becomes a broader topic... > > Academia is by far the best institution humanity has yet come up with > for fostering creative research in a stable and persistent way -- but > it still sucks... > > ben > > > > On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 9:19 PM Linas Vepstas <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > Hi Jose, > > > > Regarding finding a PhD program in which to study AGI ... > > > > On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 10:31 PM Jose Ignacio Rodriguez-Labra < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> > >> Thank you for the response, Linas. > >> > >> I thought that academia was the place to go to work on cutting-edge > ideas and pushing boundaries :( > >> > >> However to be honest I do see what you're saying. I've personally > spoken to a couple of experienced professors who've done research on > machine learning and neural networks, but they seem like they don't believe > in AGI, or that it is in a ridiculously away future. I can see their > disbelief in their eyes. > >> > >> But I'm sure that in history there have been technologies that no one > had believed in before their development, how did those come to fruition? > What does the history manual recommend I do? Is AGI development from my > basement in my free time the best I can do? How did you end up in the > position that you are that allowed you to gain your expertise in AGI? Thank > you. > > > > > > Those are good questions. To answer them, let me offer a few stories. A > long time ago, when I was in grad school, I became very interested in > fractals, "negative entropy", and "chaos". I thought these would be > fascinating things to study, but was warned against it. I was told that > only cranks and crackpots study such things and I would never be able to > get a job. This was, of course, shortly before "chaos theory" exploded on > the scene. Eventually, there were best-seller books written about it! (In > the end, I did not study chaos; I feel like I missed my chance: I was in > the right place at the right time and did the wrong thing.) > > > > Academics are a conservative bunch, because they have to write grant > proposals that do not get rejected. No grant -> no money -> no job/tenure, > if you're young, can't do research, can't pay for grad students, can't pay > for lab equipment, computer time. The guys in the machine shop who drill > pieces of metal for your experiment - they need to be paid. So you don't > want to write grant proposals that sound crazy and are likely to be > rejected. This makes academics stick fairly closely to the mainstream; they > are risk-averse. > > > > I did keep whining about chaos, and kept gluing pictures of fractals on > the wall. Someone suggested that I talk to Phil Anderson -- he was, by that > point, a rather famous and established heretical thinker. However, he was > in California, I was in New York, and this was before email. I would have > to write a letter, or call on the phone. I was easily intimidated .. and > socially awkward. I didn't know how to do that. (I should have done it). > > > > I was also sent to talk to Per Bak, a bit before he got famous. He was > at Brookhaven; I was almost done with my PhD, I was silly and did not know > what to talk about, and I did not know how to ask for a job or how to ask > for advice (!!) I knew math and physics, I did not have "ordinary > common-sense people skills". Alas. > > > > The point of my stories is for you not to repeat them. There almost > surely are some AGI thinkers embedded in academia, but I do not know who > they are. It is much more valuable and important for you to find them; > studying AGI in your basement is a formulas for intellectual suicide. > Standard career advice: it is not what you know, it's who you know. > > > > Here is an idea: someone recently pointed me at a paper by Geoffrey > Hinton "How to represent part-whole hierarchies in a neural network": > https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.12627 -- I have not read it yet, but it looks > right up my alley. You should raise your hand and write to him, and say > something like "hey me! I want to do that!" -- or at least, ask him what > you asked me -- advice on getting a PhD. If I may be so bold, I will bcc > him on this (bcc, so as not to spam a public mailing list with a private > email address.) > > > > So here's the deal: I've been working on the intersection of neural nets > and symbolic AI since -- I dunno -- 2014? Earlier? I've been laboring in > (what feels like) complete obscurity, unable to get anyone interested or > excited. Asking me for help is pointless: I have no connections; I don't > know of anyone, besides Ben, who is interested in this topic. > > > > By contrast: Geoffrey Hinton has a Wikipedia article about him. He has > connections both to a respectable university and to Google. That's hard to > beat. He may not personally know anyone interested in AGI, but he might be > able to point you in the right direction. > > > > My strongest advice to you is to keep asking around, through your > network of people who know other people who might know, and pose them this > same question. > > > > I can give you a specific curriculum to study, but this is not the most > important thing, right now. Pester me later, as the mood hits. > > > > -- linas > > > > > >> > >> On Sunday, April 25, 2021 at 6:52:30 PM UTC-4 linas wrote: > >>> > >>> I don't know. Let us know if you find out. My general impression is > that academia is still actively hostile to the idea of AGI. I've never had > a conversation on the topic that went well. > >>> > >>> -- Linas > >>> > >>> On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 11:49 AM Jose Ignacio Rodriguez-Labra < > [email protected]> wrote: > >>>> > >>>> I want to get serious in the development of AGI, and I think doing a > Ph.D. might be best for me. I will graduate with my master's this Fall > 2021. Do you guys have any recommendations for universities, research > institutes, or programs in the US or even international? 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/d0efa315-7d7d-4fad-8ba3-33432981f0e5n%40googlegroups.com. > > > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> -- > >>> Patrick: Are they laughing at us? > >>> Sponge Bob: No, Patrick, they are laughing next to us. > >>> > >>> > >> -- > >> 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/e3426270-cfb1-4df0-82ac-fede670ab5d8n%40googlegroups.com. > > > > > > > > > > -- > > Patrick: Are they laughing at us? > > Sponge Bob: No, Patrick, they are laughing next to us. > > > > > > -- > > 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/CAHrUA34f1KxcQTyV3uSvtVzQz316rhqizR8jp835be%3Dv9C121A%40mail.gmail.com. > > > > > > -- > Ben Goertzel, PhD > http://goertzel.org > > “He not busy being born is busy dying" -- Bob Dylan > -- 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/b2fb9b83-d02b-4f84-9177-f6dd6e267959n%40googlegroups.com.
