Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
YKY, Which is a bigger motivator -- charity/altruism, or $$? For me it's $$, and charity is of lower priority. And let's not forget that self-interested individuals in a free market can bring about progress, at least according to Adam Smith. A suggestion, if you really are motivated by $$ and getting rich, why not focus on other much easier problems that will still potentially make you bucket-loads money? Contra to you, I wanted to spend time on AGI, but wasn't motivated by money. However, the easiest path I can foresee, where I'm able to work on AGI, is to make money through one of several business ideas, or just earn large amounts of cash for a global consultancy firm. Once I have enough to either: spend several years working voluntarily on an AGI project, or have enough to assist in funding one (possibly Novamente, since I spent some time playing with it for a grad project and generally agree with the direction Ben's been taking it); then I'll change on to the track I really want to be on. Joel - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On 6/6/07, Joel Pitt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: YKY, A suggestion, if you really are motivated by $$ and getting rich, why not focus on other much easier problems that will still potentially make you bucket-loads money? I have this slightly crazy idea of selling the project's AGI prototype software *en bloc* even when it is not very useful, as a toy for users to explore. This may actually generate income if users find it interesting. I guess everyone has slightly different ambitions, priorities, and circumstances. I plan to work on AGI full-time (as I'm not good at anything else!) and thus I need to make money from it. I also really want to earn what is commensurate to my input, an insistence not shared by some here. Contra to you, I wanted to spend time on AGI, but wasn't motivated by money. However, the easiest path I can foresee, where I'm able to work on AGI, is to make money through one of several business ideas, or just earn large amounts of cash for a global consultancy firm. Once I have enough to either: spend several years working voluntarily on an AGI project, or have enough to assist in funding one (possibly Novamente, since I spent some time playing with it for a grad project and generally agree with the direction Ben's been taking it); then I'll change on to the track I really want to be on. My AGI ideas are very close to Ben's, but I'm not sure if he'll accept my suggestions if I work for him. And I can already see some superficial differences in our AGIs. That's why I'm vacillating between starting a new project or joining Novamente... YKY - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
This is the kind of control freak tendency that makes many startup ventures untenable; if you cannot give up some control (and I will grant such tendencies are not natural), you might not be the best person to be running such a startup venture. Yup, my suggestion of giving control to five or six trustworthy owners is definitely the epitome of control freak.:-) Why all the emotion? Blue sky ventures and maintaining control are pretty much in opposition to each other if you do not want to marginalize your funding opportunities. The lack of intrinsic capital is going to make things tough, because the only real currency you have *is* control. No, the real currency that I want to have is an awesome talent pool and some good demonstrable progress before we look for additional funding. I don't have a need for control. I insist upon the boundary that the AGI must be protected and not able to be used to take over the world. Yes, that is going to reduce my funding opportunities -- but it's a requirement that I'm not willing to concede and I will black-ball any trustworthy owner candidates who show *any* signs of being willing to concede it. - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
It will b e very hard at that point to hold up in court, given that the AGI must choose who gets what, cause there sure aint no precedent for a non-legal-entity like an AI for making legal decisions. Will have to have it declared a person first. James Ratcliff Benjamin Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So you are going to make a special set of corporate bylaws that disentangle shares from control? Hmmm... Something like: the initial trustworthy owners are given temporary trusteeship over the shares, but are then bound to distribute them according to the wishes of the AGI once the AGI passes some threshold level of intelligence?? I suppose that could work... I know the Frankfurter Allgemaine Zeitung (famous German newspaper) is operated by each of the 5 publishers being given trusteeship over 1/5 of the shares ... but then they pass this trusteeship along to their successors when they retire... -- Ben G On 6/3/07, Mark Waser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote::-)The ones controlling the company are that set of trustworthy owners that I mentioned before. One of the reasons why I'm not giving out intermediate options is to prevent questions/problems like this. I *do* understand pretty well how VCs think/operate and the biggest drawback is going to be that, in order to protect the AGI, we're not going to be willing to give up a majority share. - Original Message - From:Benjamin Goertzel To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2007 9:08 PM Subject: Re: [agi] Open AGIConsortium Because, unless they take a majority share, they want toknow who it is they're dealing with... i.e. who is controlling thecompany One of the most important things an investor looks at is THEPEOPLE who are controlling the company, and in your scheme, it is not clearwho that is... Yes, you can say I control the company even though Idon't have a controlling set of shares, but investors are not likely totrust, this, because they view financial ownership as the essence ofmotivation [since that is what motivates them, by and large] - 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/?; - 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/?; ___ James Ratcliff - http://falazar.com Looking for something... - Get the Yahoo! toolbar and be alerted to new email wherever you're surfing. - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
It will b e very hard at that point to hold up in court, given that the AGI must choose who gets what, cause there sure aint no precedent for a non-legal-entity like an AI for making legal decisions. Will have to have it declared a person first. There is nothing necessary to hold up in court. The trustees/trustworthy owners are taking the action. The fact that their decision was based upon the ramblings of an AGI is entirely irrelevant as far as the legal system is concerned. There is, of course, the danger of trustee defection but I don't believe that you can legally stop that short of declaring the AGI a person and making the trustees unnecessary (and I'm not holding my breath). The entire point of the trustees is to provide the correct legal cover for the AGI. - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On Jun 5, 2007, at 10:01 AM, Mark Waser wrote: There is nothing necessary to hold up in court. The trustees/trustworthy owners are taking the action. The fact that their decision was based upon the ramblings of an AGI is entirely irrelevant as far as the legal system is concerned. There is, of course, the danger of trustee defection but I don't believe that you can legally stop that short of declaring the AGI a person and making the trustees unnecessary (and I'm not holding my breath). The entire point of the trustees is to provide the correct legal cover for the AGI. That sounds like a contributor lawsuit waiting to happen outside of the contributors contractually agreeing to have zero rights, and who would want to sign such a contract? Cheers, J. Andrew Rogers - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
What distinguishes this venture from the hundreds of other ones that are frankly indistinguishable from yours? What is that killer thing that you can convincingly demonstrate you have that no one else can? Without that, your chances are poor on many different levels. I'm trying to find your unique angle here, but have come up empty so far. :-) You have no chance of finding such in what has been recently written. As I said a few e-mail previously -- There will be a massive write-up of the project in July and I'll be inviting all interested parties then. YKY's post just offered an immediate opportunity to float some of my organizational ideas to see if they'd float or sink like a rock (since I really don't want the non-project stuff to prevent people from working on the project). I'm not trying to stop you, I'm merely pointing out that it will very significantly reduce your opportunities and probably far more than you are anticipating. Either way, it won't be *my* problem. :-) I'm just trying to give you some practical perspective on the venture thing, both generally and as it pertains to AI. Understood. Let me reverse the question -- Given an absolute requirement of not letting the AGI be misused, what would you do? - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
That sounds like a contributor lawsuit waiting to happen outside of the contributors contractually agreeing to have zero rights, and who would want to sign such a contract? And there's the rub. We've gotten into a situation where it's almost literally impossible to honestly set up a venture that can't be ruined by one litigious individual. Personally, I *would* sign such a contract if I trusted that the trustworthy owners were on the up and up because I don't see how it would be used to take advantage of me other than someone, somehow getting to the AGI (and I very much value the creation of an AGI). Obviously, other people's mileage will vary tremendously. - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
Have we not decided that impossible yet? You can delay it, but not prevent it, once it hits the mainstream. The best way to delay it, is to have the smallest group, with the tightest restrictions in place, which goes against the grain of having a large mostly open groups that have been put forward. You can put all the standard mechanisms in to try to have it be friendly, but in the end, taking out those restrictions is an order much easier than putting them in place. James Ratcliff Mark Waser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:What distinguishes this venture from the hundreds of other ones that are frankly indistinguishable from yours? What is that killer thing that you can convincingly demonstrate you have that no one else can? Without that, your chances are poor on many different levels. I'm trying to find your unique angle here, but have come up empty so far. :-) You have no chance of finding such in what has been recently written. As I said a few e-mail previously -- There will be a massive write-up of the project in July and I'll be inviting all interested parties then. YKY's post just offered an immediate opportunity to float some of my organizational ideas to see if they'd float or sink like a rock (since I really don't want the non-project stuff to prevent people from working on the project). I'm not trying to stop you, I'm merely pointing out that it will very significantly reduce your opportunities and probably far more than you are anticipating. Either way, it won't be *my* problem. :-) I'm just trying to give you some practical perspective on the venture thing, both generally and as it pertains to AI. Understood. Let me reverse the question -- Given an absolute requirement of not letting the AGI be misused, what would you do? - 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/?; ___ James Ratcliff - http://falazar.com Looking for something... - 8:00? 8:25? 8:40? Find a flick in no time with theYahoo! Search movie showtime shortcut. - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
Have we not decided that impossible yet? You can delay it, but not prevent it, once it hits the mainstream. No, because my question deals with *before* it hits the mainstream. The best way to delay it, is to have the smallest group, with the tightest restrictions in place, which goes against the grain of having a large mostly open groups that have been put forward. Right. But the question is Is there some way to do it with a large, mostly open pool of contributors (which is why I'm restricting access to the code to need-to-know). I'm really not being stupid and wrestling with an easy issue here:-). You can put all the standard mechanisms in to try to have it be friendly, but in the end, taking out those restrictions is an order much easier than putting them in place. Agreed. Once it's released, it's got to be able to fend for itself -- but I'm currently only concerning myself about the time before that point. - Original Message - From: James Ratcliff To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2007 2:53 PM Subject: Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium Have we not decided that impossible yet? You can delay it, but not prevent it, once it hits the mainstream. The best way to delay it, is to have the smallest group, with the tightest restrictions in place, which goes against the grain of having a large mostly open groups that have been put forward. You can put all the standard mechanisms in to try to have it be friendly, but in the end, taking out those restrictions is an order much easier than putting them in place. James Ratcliff Mark Waser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What distinguishes this venture from the hundreds of other ones that are frankly indistinguishable from yours? What is that killer thing that you can convincingly demonstrate you have that no one else can? Without that, your chances are poor on many different levels. I'm trying to find your unique angle here, but have come up empty so far. :-) You have no chance of finding such in what has been recently written. As I said a few e-mail previously -- There will be a massive write-up of the project in July and I'll be inviting all interested parties then. YKY's post just offered an immediate opportunity to float some of my organizational ideas to see if they'd float or sink like a rock (since I really don't want the non-project stuff to prevent people from working on the project). I'm not trying to stop you, I'm merely pointing out that it will very significantly reduce your opportunities and probably far more than you are anticipating. Either way, it won't be *my* problem. :-) I'm just trying to give you some practical perspective on the venture thing, both generally and as it pertains to AI. Understood. Let me reverse the question -- Given an absolute requirement of not letting the AGI be misused, what would you do? 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/?; ___ James Ratcliff - http://falazar.com Looking for something... -- 8:00? 8:25? 8:40? Find a flick in no time with theYahoo! Search movie showtime shortcut. -- 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/?; - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
You may be assuming flexibility in the securities and tax regulations than actually exists now. They've tightened things up quite a bit over the last ten years. I don't think so. I'm pretty aware of the current conditions. Equity and pseudo-equity (like incentive stock options -- ISOs) should be contracted at the earliest possible time, and before either financial or delivery milestones if at all possible, if you care about the value you will actually be delivering to your contributors. I'm not sure what you mean by if you care about the value you will actually be delivering to your contributors but, in any case, ISOs are exactly as problematical as regular shares/equity -- ongoing post-AGI profits are what need to be distributed, equity and control really only matter to ensure that the profits are distributed as promised. And then there is the what-if of dissolution, acquisition, etc in which a pre-AGI determination of equity ownership needs to be figured out -- the way you've set it up, the contributors would be entitled to squat. True, but there would be little to distribute pre-AGI anyways and the trusted owners would be morally (though not legally) obligated to the fairest distribution of source code, etc. possible (probably making it open source). Actually, that's not true, the contribution agreement could easily be written so that the code etc. goes open source upon dissolution. This kinds of things are pretty strictly regulated now, and waiting until the end to contract a stake to your contributors would be a disaster for them in terms of both their return and/or tax liability, If you're waiting until the end to distribute shares/equity, the immediate tax liability is nasty because it is counted as a sudden transfer of value. The return, however, if the shares/equity were sold immediately is exactly the same as if they owned it all along. If, however, ongoing profits are simply distributed (instead of equity), there is no problematical sudden transfer of value. And realistically, there aren't going to be profits pre-AGI. never mind the unpleasant scenarios that can occur. Which is the one true bugaboo for which I only have the solution of trustworthy owners. I cannot imagine that a savvy person would accept deferred contracting of options and equity. It would be one of the worst possible equity stake schemes I have seen. It's not an equity stake scheme. It's a profit-sharing scheme. Equity implies control and control is problematical. Can you propose something better that doesn't require guessing what a person's contribution will be IN ADVANCE. The closest *decent* way to do what you want to do is to contract options upfront with modifying conditions and qualifications based on future performance. Do you believe that you could successfully do that? Would you be willing to write up an initial shot at it? Mark - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
I think he's just saying to -- make a pool of N shares allocated to technical founders. Call this the Technical Founders Pool -- allocate M options on these shares to each technical founder, but with a vesting condition that includes the condition that only N of the options will ever be vested all total This doesn't solve the tax problem though. The closest *decent* way to do what you want to do is to contract options upfront with modifying conditions and qualifications based on future performance. Do you believe that you could successfully do that? Would you be willing to write up an initial shot at it? Mark - 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/?; - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
One possible method of becoming an AGI tycoon might be to have the main core of code as conventional open source under some suitable licence, but then charge customers for the service of having that core system customised to solve particular tasks. The licence might permit use of the code for non commercial uses, such as research, but for commercial use the developer would have to donate some cash into a pool which could then be divided up or reinvested in core development projects. If you're going down the route of distributing shares in future profits then those involved should be clear about the chances of getting some return and likely time scales. The Mindpixel project from some years ago was really a textbook example of how not to do it (i.e. by raising big expectations of near term profit, and then failing to deliver). On 04/06/07, Benjamin Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think he's just saying to -- make a pool of N shares allocated to technical founders. Call this the Technical Founders Pool -- allocate M options on these shares to each technical founder, but with a vesting condition that includes the condition that only N of the options will ever be vested all total This doesn't solve the tax problem though. The closest *decent* way to do what you want to do is to contract options upfront with modifying conditions and qualifications based on future performance. Do you believe that you could successfully do that? Would you be willing to write up an initial shot at it? Mark - 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/?; 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/?; - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
RE: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
Mark, have you looked at phantom stock plans? These offer some of the same incentives as equity ownership without giving an actual equity stake or options, allowing grantees the chance to benefit from appreciation in the organization's value without the owners actually relinquishing ownership. Drawbacks abound, of course. But it might be worth looking into. Keith - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
But how do you add more contributors without a lot of very contentious work? Think of all the hassles that you've had with just the close-knit Novamente folk (and I don't mean to disparage them or you at all) and then increase it by some number (further complicated by distance, difference of viewpoint, difference in possible contributions much less being able to accurately assess that, etc.) - Original Message - From: Benjamin Goertzel To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 7:54 AM Subject: Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium I think he's just saying to -- make a pool of N shares allocated to technical founders. Call this the Technical Founders Pool -- allocate M options on these shares to each technical founder, but with a vesting condition that includes the condition that only N of the options will ever be vested all total This doesn't solve the tax problem though. - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
Mark, have you looked at phantom stock plans? Keith, I have not since I was unaware of them. Thank you very much for the pointer. I will investigate. (Now this is why I spend so much time on-line -- If only there were some almost-all-knowing being that could take what you're trying to accomplish and almost immediately offer suggestions/help on what information might be relevant :-). Mark - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On 04/06/07, Mark Waser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: One possible method of becoming an AGI tycoon might be to have the main core of code as conventional open source under some suitable licence, but then charge customers for the service of having that core system customised to solve particular tasks. Uh, I don't think you're getting this. Any true AGI is going to be able to customize itself . . . . (that's kind of the point) Well, humans have a kind of general intelligence and can also to some extent modify their own knowledge/situation. Having a general ability to adapt doesn't necessarily mean that you're are automatically an expert in all domains. Humans usually need some training or familiarisation before they can perform well at any given job, and I expect the same will be true for AGIs, at least initially. Of course AGIs will have many advantages which we do not, being able to transfer acquired knowledge more easily. - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
One possible method of becoming an AGI tycoon might be to have the main core of code as conventional open source under some suitable licence, but then charge customers for the service of having that core system customised to solve particular tasks. Uh, I don't think you're getting this. Any true AGI is going to be able to customize itself . . . . (that's kind of the point) If you're going down the route of distributing shares in future profits then those involved should be clear about the chances of getting some return and likely time scales. I don't believe that it is possible for anyone to be clear about the chances of getting some return and likely time scales because I don't believe that anyone has that information. Each individual is going to have to make their own guesstimate of these things from the architecture, the project plan, their assessment of their co-contributors, their assessment of the difficulty of the project plan tasks, and whether of not they believe that the project plan tasks will actually lead to an AGI, The Mindpixel project from some years ago was really a textbook example of how not to do it (i.e. by raising big expectations of near term profit, and then failing to deliver). Yet that is what they (incorrectly) believed and what you're trying to force me to do. - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On Jun 4, 2007, at 4:35 AM, Mark Waser wrote: This kinds of things are pretty strictly regulated now, and waiting until the end to contract a stake to your contributors would be a disaster for them in terms of both their return and/or tax liability, If you're waiting until the end to distribute shares/equity, the immediate tax liability is nasty because it is counted as a sudden transfer of value. The return, however, if the shares/equity were sold immediately is exactly the same as if they owned it all along. If, however, ongoing profits are simply distributed (instead of equity), there is no problematical sudden transfer of value. And realistically, there aren't going to be profits pre-AGI. Depending on how the nominal value is disbursed, the true financial value can vary significantly. Other than outright equity, Instruments like profit distribution are about the worst in this regard, instruments like warrants are among the best (but you can't give those to just anyone), and most other instruments fall somewhere in the middle. The difference is significant: the real return between the best and worst can easily be 2x. (Depending on your specific type of interest in a company, an argument can be made that warrants can be more valuable than equity.) The closest *decent* way to do what you want to do is to contract options upfront with modifying conditions and qualifications based on future performance. Do you believe that you could successfully do that? Would you be willing to write up an initial shot at it? Since many startups in Silicon Valley do exactly this, I would say that it is quite doable. It is less flexible and accurate than waiting until the end to make determinations of value, but it is a fair proxy and both parties have to agree to it anyway. If structured well, bits can frequently be negotiated off-contract later if conditions change. It is how startups deal with things like high rates of churn. Personally, I do find the current state of regulation to be irritatingly inflexible. Cheers, J. Andrew Rogers - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
The difference is significant: the real return between the best and worst can easily be 2x. Given that this is effectively a venture capital moon-shot as opposed to a normal savings plan type investment, a variance of 2x is not as much as it initially seems (and we would, of course, do whatever we could to avoid the worst of the worst cases). (Depending on your specific type of interest in a company, an argument can be made that warrants can be more valuable than equity.) Warrants have the same control problems as options do -- magnified by the fact that they are transferable. They are definitely not what I would call acceptable for this purpose. Since many startups in Silicon Valley do exactly this, I would say that it is quite doable. It is less flexible and accurate than waiting until the end to make determinations of value, but it is a fair proxy and both parties have to agree to it anyway. If structured well, bits can frequently be negotiated off-contract later if conditions change. It is how startups deal with things like high rates of churn. I would argue that while it is doable when there is a relatively small number of people, when the people know each other, and when they have a reasonable amount of togetherness time -- I don't see it working in the proposed circumstances. = = = = = You *are* giving good solid financial advice and I *do* appreciate it. I'm just not seeing a good, clean way to do everything that I want to do (which is really a sad commentary on the current state of regulation). Mark - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On Jun 4, 2007, at 8:07 AM, Mark Waser wrote: (Depending on your specific type of interest in a company, an argument can be made that warrants can be more valuable than equity.) Warrants have the same control problems as options do -- magnified by the fact that they are transferable. They are definitely not what I would call acceptable for this purpose. Eh? What is the problem with them being transferable? Of what value are these instruments to anyone if they are not ultimately transferable? This is the kind of control freak tendency that makes many startup ventures untenable; if you cannot give up some control (and I will grant such tendencies are not natural), you might not be the best person to be running such a startup venture. If I was a VC looking at your company -- not a foreign role for me -- the fixation on that aspect would raise red flags. Blue sky ventures and maintaining control are pretty much in opposition to each other if you do not want to marginalize your funding opportunities. The lack of intrinsic capital is going to make things tough, because the only real currency you have *is* control. Cheers, J. Andrew Rogers - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
my 2 cents worth (both to Mark YKY): think of the people you are trying to co-opt onto the project. Some of us (most mid-lifers) have *some* income stream (regular job or otherwise) but are extremely committed to AGI as one of our main purposes of our life. Ideally we would want a rich donor to sponsor us to work full-time on AGI (though personally I doubt whether *I* could work 60-80 hours a week every week on AGI) but we are not really motivated by money (current or future income streams) - some of us only in due credit and some of the latter group perhaps in fame :) We are likely to not be interested in neither of your schemes because our philosophy is 'let's build a (couple of) prototype(s) first to see if our ideas work and take it from there - either fully proprietary or full OSS'. (Ok Ben got a bit further along that track than most of 'us'.) Many of the others, I suspect, (mainly the younger ones on the list) NEED a regular and solid immediate income stream and your models ALSO does not provide for that. So I am not sure what type of individuals (i.e. their personal circumstances) either of your schemes attracts/motivates. Perhaps it may be more productive to ask people on the list quickly to indicate their interest and/or willingness to participate in your scheme (by emailing either of you directly rather than the list)? Just my thoughts... =Jean-Paul Van Belle PS @Mike/J Stors - yes I remember the Hilbert spaces posting as well but skipped it (was way beyond my intellectual level/maths background) but it is definitely there in the archives (but perhaps one of the other lists?) PSS Ben I loved reading your blog. Pls keep it up. If you ever have time, let us know why, of the 3 different AGI approaches you entertained, you went with Novamente instead of the Hebbian neural net (and the theorem proving one)... us scruffies would like to know... is it just your mathematical bias/background or something more fundamental? PSSS :) Google is doing narrow AI, Semantic Web NLP, IBM is doing WebFountain (i.e. also semantic web) and autonomous computing. So neither seem to be in AGI. Anyone knows what M$ is up to? They have hired quite a few smart CS *and* psych people too... Mark Waser [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/02/07 11:56 PM Yes, I believe there're people capable of producing income-generating stuff in the interim. I can't predict how the project would evolve, but am optimistic. Ask Ben about how much that affects a project . . . . Note: Yes, I do have a serious mistrust of the legal system. - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
Hi Jean-Paul, I'm not sure that I understand your point but let me try to answer it anyways (and you'll tell me if I missed :-). I qualify as one of those mid-lifers but, due to impending college expenses, I NEED my current non-AGI income stream. I'm not hugely motivated by money but would question any project that doesn't address the issue in a fair fashion. What *was* lost in my post (because I haven't really given details about the project yet) is that given what I'm doing anyways, the credit assignment (as long as it's performed by the AGI) should be possible without any additional work beforehand (i.e. it's a freebie). Further, there certainly are people who are motivated by the chance of serious future money and attracting them would be great. There's also the point that YKY's scheme will never be acceptable to a venture capitalist which was part of my mental notes (you should have read my mind :-) about paying individuals who NEED a regular and solid immediate income stream (which I'm not, however, prepared to make promises about at this point) by attempting to attract money once I'm in a state to do so (which is why I was already prepped with my question to YKY about non-AGI contributors since we'd then need publicity people and eventually HR people, etc.). Perhaps it may be more productive to ask people on the list quickly to indicate their interest and/or willingness to participate in your scheme (by emailing either of you directly rather than the list)? I'm not really interested in who is interested in participating in my scheme. I'm interested in who is interested in my project (and I'll make sure that the scheme works for them -- that's why I've been pushing the flexibility point so hard with YKY). There will be a massive write-up of the project in July and I'll be inviting all interested parties then. YKY's post just offered an immediate opportunity to float some of my organizational ideas to see if they'd float or sink like a rock (since I really don't want the non-project stuff to prevent people from working on the project). Thank you for the helpful feedback (did I answer your question?). Mark - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
OK... just a few quick points to add to this: 1. *Inclusion of code*. I believe AGI would *best* be achieved by a combination of theory and craft. A joint project / consortium should actively encourage people to experiment with AGI code. Also, pure theory is very dry, having code will increase the fun 10x. 2. *Theives harvest and run* is indeed a serious obstacle to trust. Especially for things like a good NLP module -- many people can steal such a module and apply it to their *non-AGI* biz. The indebted-to-mother-project clause mainly protects against professional, big, AGI projects. So we need to compensate for members taking the risk to disclose easy-to-rip-off stuff like NLP modules, perhaps with cash and a bigger chunk of shares (and yes, I'm aware of legal problems with shares, let's assume this at the mo). That is, compensation should vary case-by-case. Perhaps we can set up a fund to pay people in cash, and I can contribute some seed capital, and some other sources. That said, remember that the indebted-to-mother-project clause will be attached to all the stuff (including code) that we disclose. If anyone steals our code by ignoring the clause, they're still *pretty likely* to get caught when their business becomes big and famous. 3. *Making money*. I think making money in the medium term is highly probable if we can pool together a group of people with code contributions. But we need to compensate them for the special kind of contributions they make and the risks they take, as explained above. 4. *Accept members as broadly as possible*. A typical AGI company usually interviews potential candidates, sign NDAs, and then see if their skills align with the company's project. After such a screening many candidates with good ideas may not be hired. The consortium is to remedy this by letting members with disparate views exchange their ideas freely, with the safety of being credited for them. A research consortium is a joint venture where companies in the same industry collaborate to bring about an RD breakthrough that is desperately needed and yet is beyond the capacity of any single company to achieve. 5. *Management is needed*. I was wrong to think that the consortium can run entirely autonomously via some mechanistic rules. We do need a managed organization to run this, though the simplicity of operation is still highly desirable. YKY - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
4. *Accept members as broadly as possible*. A typical AGI company usually interviews potential candidates, sign NDAs, and then see if their skills align with the company's project. After such a screening many candidates with good ideas may not be hired. The consortium is to remedy this by letting members with disparate views exchange their ideas freely, with the safety of being credited for them. I will just note that this would make a project very difficult to manage. In Novamente we have mixed feelings about newbie volunteers because 1) 90% of them don't work out for one reason or another [often they didn't have as much time as they thought they had, didn't have enough background, didn't like the AI philosophy, etc.] 2) dealing with each one, once they get beyond the level of just reading docs, takes time Of course some of our best contributors were newbies once [rather than being co-founders], but I'm just pointing out that accepting arbitrary new people into a project can become a very major drag, if you provide any kind of support for those new people to come up to speed. That is because AI is difficult, and unlike something like Linux is not based mainly on textbook information that anyone can look up... -- Ben G - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
One way in which you might be able to make use of many members who may be interested in AGI but lack the background knowledge or programming skills might be to develop scripting languages or IDEs which would allow volunteers (payed or otherwise) to generate training scenarios or evaluate test runs. Those who are good coders but without much AI knowhow could be put to work developing simulation environments, or just generally improving the quality of animations or other stuff which will add to the presentation. On 03/06/07, Benjamin Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I will just note that this would make a project very difficult to manage. - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
Yeah, we often try to get newbies involved with the AGISim open-source 3D sim world project... But that project is not yet mature enough to be friendly to anyone who is not a pretty good programmer. Just getting AGISim to compile, at the moment, is kind of a bitch... -- Ben On 6/3/07, Bob Mottram [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: One way in which you might be able to make use of many members who may be interested in AGI but lack the background knowledge or programming skills might be to develop scripting languages or IDEs which would allow volunteers (payed or otherwise) to generate training scenarios or evaluate test runs. Those who are good coders but without much AI knowhow could be put to work developing simulation environments, or just generally improving the quality of animations or other stuff which will add to the presentation. On 03/06/07, Benjamin Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I will just note that this would make a project very difficult to manage. - 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/?; - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
RE: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
It needs a Visual Studio 2005 Solution file in the source distro. Just having that would offer much encouragement to would-be developers. Does this thing actually talk to Novamente BTW? Though sockets? What's it doing? John From: Benjamin Goertzel [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] But that project is not yet mature enough to be friendly to anyone who is not a pretty good programmer. Just getting AGISim to compile, at the moment, is kind of a bitch... - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On 6/3/07, John G. Rose [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It needs a Visual Studio 2005 Solution file in the source distro. Just having that would offer much encouragement to would-be developers… Well, it's an open-source project, so feel free to create such a file ;-) [As I use OSX and Ubuntu, it wouldn't be any use to me personally...] We do value AGISim, but the paid NM team is small and currently focusing on other things Does this thing actually talk to Novamente BTW? Though sockets? What's it doing? yeah, it talks to NM via a piece of software called the SimProxy The last thing posted publicly in this regard was in this prior email: * Sat, 17 Mar 2007 13:05:44 -0800 Hi all, This doesn't really showcase Novamente's learning ability very much -- it's basically a smoke test of the integration of Novamente probabilistic learning with the AGISim sim world -- an integration which we've had sorta working for a while but has had a lot of kinks needing working-out. But still, some of you may find it mildly amusing... http://goertzel.org/Novamente%20Learns%20Fetch.wmv [We have done a lot more sophisticated learning stuff outside the sim world context, and are gradually integrating more and more of this learning code into the sim-world/NM framework...] -- Ben *** 00 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On 6/3/07, Bob Mottram [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: One way in which you might be able to make use of many members who may be interested in AGI but lack the background knowledge or programming skills might be to develop scripting languages or IDEs which would allow volunteers (payed or otherwise) to generate training scenarios or evaluate test runs. Those who are good coders but without much AI knowhow could be put to work developing simulation environments, or just generally improving the quality of animations or other stuff which will add to the presentation. I think there's a broad spectrum of talent out there that cannot be characterized easily, and they may be able to work on all aspects of AGI. For example, I can think of a toy-level AGI consisting of an NL interface dumping things into a KB and perhaps performing some reasoning as well. It may start as a seed to be improved upon, by tinkering and guided by theory. That's the type of collaboration I'm thinking of -- an environment that is like opensource, but with a more substantial chance of getting paid. Also, some others may want to try entirely different ideas, but similar in the emergent sense. YKY - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
YKY and Mark Waser ... About innovative organizational structures for AGI projects, let me suggest the following Perhaps you could A) make the AGI codebase itself open-source, but using a license other than GPL, which -- makes the source open -- makes the source free for noncommercial use -- gives the rights to control commercialization of the codebase to the nonprofit XYZ Corporation [including derived works of the codebase] B) The nonprofit XYZ Corporation would -- have the goal of giving rights to others to use the AGI code commercially -- have the policy of preferentially giving these rights to those who have contributed to the codebase -- not give long-term domain-specific exclusive rights to anyone (short-term domain-specific exclusive rights, might make sense..) -- charge some license fee for those who want to commercialize the codebase, which would fund its operations and also potentially fund work on the AGI codebase That way, if you yourself want to both work on the AGI codebase and make $$, you could -- work on the AGI codebase -- found a for-profit startup applying early versions of the AGI codebase in some particular vertical market Some advantages of this arrangement are: -- If folks just want to contribute to an AGI without worrying about making $$, but with a desire for their code to be publicly available, this satisfies them -- If contributors to the AGI codebase want to make $$, they can start a spinoff and get permission from XYZ to use the AGI code -- the AGI itself will not stand or fall based on the success or failure of any particular commercial application -- if ownership is diluted by VC or angel investment, the dilution will occur in a for-profit spinoff, not in XYC -- if a really awesome advanced AGI is produced, XYZ always has the opportunity to make $$ from it and keep the money in-house to promote a positive Singularity. It can't disseminate this $$ to the co-founders ... but it can certainly pay the co-founders healthy salaries and bonuses for their work... I don't intend to follow this sort of arrangement with Novamente. We have accepted the plusses and minuses of being a small for-profit startup firm. However, if you want to do an OSS AGI project but still preserve possibilities for commercialization, I think the above makes sense. A key point is that, until the AGI is really close to adult-human-level, the commercial payoff is gonna be in domain-specific vertical-market spinoffs, not in the AGI per se. And for each of these spinoffs, at least 80% of the work will be non AI related. And each of these spinoffs will likely require investment $$ to pay non AI staff, which will dilute founder ownership ... but at least (in the plan I've suggested above) not in the AGI. Alternatively, XYZ could be a for-profit as well. But my feeling is that this would be worse psychologically, and more opposed to the OSS spirit. With XYZ as a nonprofit, contributors to the OSS AGI codebase don't have the feeling that they're coding for free, but for someone else's benefit. The benefit goes to anyone who wants to do a spinoff of the AGI codebase, and then some of the profit from this spinoff (if any) goes back to get more AGI work done. I understand this is not a perfect arrangement, but it seems to me much less profoundly flawed than the other alternatives that have been bounced around... Just trying to be helpful... -- Ben G On 6/3/07, YKY (Yan King Yin) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 6/3/07, Bob Mottram [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: One way in which you might be able to make use of many members who may be interested in AGI but lack the background knowledge or programming skills might be to develop scripting languages or IDEs which would allow volunteers (payed or otherwise) to generate training scenarios or evaluate test runs. Those who are good coders but without much AI knowhow could be put to work developing simulation environments, or just generally improving the quality of animations or other stuff which will add to the presentation. I think there's a broad spectrum of talent out there that cannot be characterized easily, and they may be able to work on all aspects of AGI. For example, I can think of a toy-level AGI consisting of an NL interface dumping things into a KB and perhaps performing some reasoning as well. It may start as a seed to be improved upon, by tinkering and guided by theory. That's the type of collaboration I'm thinking of -- an environment that is like opensource, but with a more substantial chance of getting paid. Also, some others may want to try entirely different ideas, but similar in the emergent sense. YKY -- 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/?; - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to:
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On 6/4/07, Benjamin Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A) make the AGI codebase itself open-source, but using a license other than GPL, which -- makes the source open -- makes the source free for noncommercial use -- gives the rights to control commercialization of the codebase to the nonprofit XYZ Corporation [including derived works of the codebase] B) The nonprofit XYZ Corporation would -- have the goal of giving rights to others to use the AGI code commercially -- have the policy of preferentially giving these rights to those who have contributed to the codebase -- not give long-term domain-specific exclusive rights to anyone (short-term domain-specific exclusive rights, might make sense..) -- charge some license fee for those who want to commercialize the codebase, which would fund its operations and also potentially fund work on the AGI codebase [...] Alternatively, XYZ could be a for-profit as well. But my feeling is that this would be worse psychologically, and more opposed to the OSS spirit. With XYZ as a nonprofit, contributors to the OSS AGI codebase don't have the feeling that they're coding for free, but for someone else's benefit. The benefit goes to anyone who wants to do a spinoff of the AGI codebase, and then some of the profit from this spinoff (if any) goes back to get more AGI work done. The problem is that I still want to get rich, and to make XYZ a non-profit would be dishonest and may result in some awkward contradictions later. (Unless my personality changes... which is also possible). I think people who are motivated by $$ tend to work harder and are more goal-oriented, and so they're more likely to produce a *higher* -quality AGI. Which is a bigger motivator -- charity/altruism, or $$? For me it's $$, and charity is of lower priority. And let's not forget that self-interested individuals in a free market can bring about progress, at least according to Adam Smith. Thanks a lot for your advice though, I'll think about it more... =) YKY - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
For me, wanting to make a thinking machine is a far stronger motivator than wanting to get rich. Of course, I'd like to get rich, but getting rich is quite ordinary and boring compared to launching a positive Singularity ;-p Being rich for the last N years before Singularity is better than not being rich for those years ... but, really, life in the US as a middle-class tech professional is not so bad, so this is not such a big deal. The main use of being rich is if it helps to more effectively launch a positive Singularity, from my view... -- Ben The problem is that I still want to get rich, and to make XYZ a non-profit would be dishonest and may result in some awkward contradictions later. (Unless my personality changes... which is also possible). I think people who are motivated by $$ tend to work harder and are more goal-oriented, and so they're more likely to produce a *higher* -quality AGI. Which is a bigger motivator -- charity/altruism, or $$? For me it's $$, and charity is of lower priority. And let's not forget that self-interested individuals in a free market can bring about progress, at least according to Adam Smith. Thanks a lot for your advice though, I'll think about it more... =) YKY -- 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/?; - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
Hi Ben, Great suggestion but, fundamentally, I don't want the codebase to be open-source. I understand this is not a perfect arrangement, but it seems to me much less profoundly flawed than the other alternatives that have been bounced around... Could you point out what you see as the profound flaws in my suggestion? (And TIA if you're willing to do so) Mark - Original Message - From: Benjamin Goertzel To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2007 1:57 PM Subject: Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium YKY and Mark Waser ... About innovative organizational structures for AGI projects, let me suggest the following Perhaps you could A) make the AGI codebase itself open-source, but using a license other than GPL, which -- makes the source open -- makes the source free for noncommercial use -- gives the rights to control commercialization of the codebase to the nonprofit XYZ Corporation [including derived works of the codebase] B) The nonprofit XYZ Corporation would -- have the goal of giving rights to others to use the AGI code commercially -- have the policy of preferentially giving these rights to those who have contributed to the codebase -- not give long-term domain-specific exclusive rights to anyone (short-term domain-specific exclusive rights, might make sense..) -- charge some license fee for those who want to commercialize the codebase, which would fund its operations and also potentially fund work on the AGI codebase That way, if you yourself want to both work on the AGI codebase and make $$, you could -- work on the AGI codebase -- found a for-profit startup applying early versions of the AGI codebase in some particular vertical market Some advantages of this arrangement are: -- If folks just want to contribute to an AGI without worrying about making $$, but with a desire for their code to be publicly available, this satisfies them -- If contributors to the AGI codebase want to make $$, they can start a spinoff and get permission from XYZ to use the AGI code -- the AGI itself will not stand or fall based on the success or failure of any particular commercial application -- if ownership is diluted by VC or angel investment, the dilution will occur in a for-profit spinoff, not in XYC -- if a really awesome advanced AGI is produced, XYZ always has the opportunity to make $$ from it and keep the money in-house to promote a positive Singularity. It can't disseminate this $$ to the co-founders ... but it can certainly pay the co-founders healthy salaries and bonuses for their work... I don't intend to follow this sort of arrangement with Novamente. We have accepted the plusses and minuses of being a small for-profit startup firm. However, if you want to do an OSS AGI project but still preserve possibilities for commercialization, I think the above makes sense. A key point is that, until the AGI is really close to adult-human-level, the commercial payoff is gonna be in domain-specific vertical-market spinoffs, not in the AGI per se. And for each of these spinoffs, at least 80% of the work will be non AI related. And each of these spinoffs will likely require investment $$ to pay non AI staff, which will dilute founder ownership ... but at least (in the plan I've suggested above) not in the AGI. Alternatively, XYZ could be a for-profit as well. But my feeling is that this would be worse psychologically, and more opposed to the OSS spirit. With XYZ as a nonprofit, contributors to the OSS AGI codebase don't have the feeling that they're coding for free, but for someone else's benefit. The benefit goes to anyone who wants to do a spinoff of the AGI codebase, and then some of the profit from this spinoff (if any) goes back to get more AGI work done. I understand this is not a perfect arrangement, but it seems to me much less profoundly flawed than the other alternatives that have been bounced around... Just trying to be helpful... -- Ben G On 6/3/07, YKY (Yan King Yin) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 6/3/07, Bob Mottram [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: One way in which you might be able to make use of many members who may be interested in AGI but lack the background knowledge or programming skills might be to develop scripting languages or IDEs which would allow volunteers (payed or otherwise) to generate training scenarios or evaluate test runs. Those who are good coders but without much AI knowhow could be put to work developing simulation environments, or just generally improving the quality of animations or other stuff which will add to the presentation. I think there's a broad spectrum of talent out there that cannot be characterized easily, and they may be able to work on all aspects of AGI. For example, I can think of a toy-level AGI consisting of an NL interface dumping
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On Jun 3, 2007, at 3:13 PM, YKY (Yan King Yin) wrote: The problem is that I still want to get rich, and to make XYZ a non- profit would be dishonest and may result in some awkward contradictions later. (Unless my personality changes... which is also possible). To put it really simply, your venture is no different than dozens, nay, hundreds of other ones. This is a very well vetted area and just about every possible organizational possibility has been tried numerous times in many contexts with varying levels of success. Rather than grasping for a new way to do things that you find aesthetically pleasing, you would probably be better off specifying what the necessary endpoint is and then pick one of the many extant proven structures for achieving those endpoints if the people involved are up to the task and study why those structures worked and others failed. What you have proposed is a blue sky startup with the negatives compounded by a lack of legitimate experience at pulling such things off. In many ways, you have a naive perspective of the significant constraints on implementation this creates. The risk profile is extremely high, which means that your venture is worth approximately nothing to anyone, which the all the economic consequences implied. Which in short means that you would retain almost no leverage over the project even if you did manage to organize it. You sorely lack capital, whether intellectual, reputation, or cold hard cash -- the stuff ventures are built on. And capital begets capital, so there is a virtuous cycle. That does not mean your project is impossible, but it is implausible. You need to spend more time working on accumulating the necessary capital. Cheers, J. Andrew Rogers - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
your suggestion is basically a dictatorship by you ;-) Oh! I am horribly offended.:-o That reaction is basically why I was planning on grabbing a bunch of other trustworthy people to serve as joint owners (as previously mentioned). without any clear promise of compensation in future No honest person can make that promise any better than I have (unless you can tell me a better way :-). or even of ability to see the whole system into which their code is fitting... Depends upon what you mean. They certainly can see whole high level design and interface specs for all the modules. What they can't see is all the code unless they're doing an awful lot of contributing. I'd hardly call that not being able to see the whole system (I'd call it not being distracted by unnecessary detail :-). Given that I'm trying to avoid NDA and NCA games, I think that this is pretty reasonable. Maybe another option would be to also offer the option of allowing someone to see everything if they do sign a pretty draconian NDA/NCA. My intent is merely to try to get as many people to participate (and contribute) as possible while keeping the aggregate of the contributors vulnerability to a minimum. I don't see how your system is better than just making a standard for-profit company, and allocating individuals options periodically based on their contributions. What's the difference, and what's the advantage? Fundamentally, it *IS* just a standard for-profit company with the intention of using as high a percentage of intermediate earnings as possible until an AGI is created. The main difference is the final profits are split by the AGI (and that I specified a lot of what would be in the corporate by-laws). The main advantage is that we don't have to determine who gets what in the meantime. And, as I said, The intent of the corporation is to 1) protect the AGI and 2) to reward those who created it commensurate with their contributions. Everything else pretty much followed from there except that I considered allocating individual options periodically as too problematical and unnecessary given the final AGI-mediated distribution. - - - - - Does the above make my suggestion any less unpalatable? What would you do differently? Obviously, for Novamente, you've made the differing choices of requiring NDAs to allow the ability to see all the code and clearer promises of present and future compensation (is it a dictatorship, though? :-). What would *YOU* do if you didn't have money and wanted to form a volunteer organization? - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
RE: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
YKY wrote: The problem is that I still want to get rich, and to make XYZ a non-profit would be dishonest and may result in some awkward contradictions later. (Unless my personality changes... which is also possible). You might get rich by writing a general software engine to make this consortium idea work -- and it will take software, some very complex and secure software to track and value the contributions of lots of people. If you can't design the software to support this idea, then the idea is not concrete enough to work as a business arrangement anyway. So this is a good place to start. To be really recursive, form a consortium of the type you have in mind to write the consortium software engine itself. You'll have a great sales presentation when its finally complete -- ConsortiumPro, written by the ConsortiumPro Consortium. Once you have the general software, people or companies can form *any* sort of idea consortium they like, not just for code projects. I can see something like this having value in large RD departments or even in Cathedral-style proprietary coding projects as part of the way companies compensate their best contributors. There have already been some attempts (even by MS I think) to bring the Bazaar into the Cathedral, but I don't know whether those worked well or not. If you really believe in this idea, the best part of it is that you can prove the consortium idea has merit as you create useful software to enable it. Keith - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
So, the share allocation is left undetermined, to be determined by the AGI someday? That's what I'm saying currently. The reality is that my project actually has a clear intermediate product that would cleanly allow all current contributors to determine an intermediate distribution -- but I'm really not ready to discuss (or more importantly defend) that yet so it's better to just take it as -- Yes, it will be the AGI. I suppose the suggestion makes sense, but it doesn't provide any way for folks to profit from intermediate results, only from achieving the end goal of human-level AGI... right? As currently stated and what I wish to defend -- yes, absolutely. In reality, as stated above, I don't think so but if everyone assumes the worst, they can only be pleasantly surprised. I suppose I would either make it nonprofit, or make it a traditional for-profit with traditional compensation schemes (like Novamente)... A non-profit is very tempting except that I'm not familiar with the workings and requirements of such and I'm also not sure how you would then reward the participants. Personally, a non-profit would be perfectly acceptable -- but I wonder how many people I wouldn't get without the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. A non-profit would also rule out any chance of attracting a venture capitalist if we decided to divert into that direction. But I'm all for innovation and I'll be curious to see how your scheme works out... I'm curious too . . . . and looking for all the help I can get:-) I feel there's enough complexity and weirdness in the AGI, I don't feel like adding complexity and weirdness in the organizational structure... Agreed. I was hoping that a traditional for-profit with a slightly odd compensation scheme (and some extra rules pretty much for internal consumption only) would work. Your reaction isn't promising (though I can't tell whether it's due to the idea itself or my poor presentation). - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
You might get rich by writing a general software engine to make this consortium idea work -- and it will take software, some very complex and secure software to track and value the contributions of lots of people. where people or companies can form *any* sort of idea consortium they like Hey! Stop stealing my ideas . . . . :-) I would guess that you seriously under-estimate the complexity of such software (hint, it's the better part of an AGI) but I would argue that the security is pretty trivial . . . . - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
Well my feeling is that the odd compensation scheme, even if very clearly presented, would turn off a VC or even an angel investor ... The only thing that is odd about the compensation scheme is how you're determining the allocation of the non-VC/investor shares/profits. Why would that bother the VC or angel investor? Why would they even care about how the remaining shares are divvied up? - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
Because, unless they take a majority share, they want to know who it is they're dealing with... i.e. who is controlling the company One of the most important things an investor looks at is THE PEOPLE who are controlling the company, and in your scheme, it is not clear who that is... Yes, you can say I control the company even though I don't have a controlling set of shares, but investors are not likely to trust, this, because they view financial ownership as the essence of motivation [since that is what motivates them, by and large] -- Ben G On 6/3/07, Mark Waser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well my feeling is that the odd compensation scheme, even if very clearly presented, would turn off a VC or even an angel investor ... The only thing that is odd about the compensation scheme is how you're determining the allocation of the non-VC/investor shares/profits. Why would that bother the VC or angel investor? Why would they even care about how the remaining shares are divvied up? -- 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/?; - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
So you are going to make a special set of corporate bylaws that disentangle shares from control? Hmmm... Something like: the initial trustworthy owners are given temporary trusteeship over the shares, but are then bound to distribute them according to the wishes of the AGI once the AGI passes some threshold level of intelligence?? I suppose that could work... I know the Frankfurter Allgemaine Zeitung (famous German newspaper) is operated by each of the 5 publishers being given trusteeship over 1/5 of the shares ... but then they pass this trusteeship along to their successors when they retire... -- Ben G On 6/3/07, Mark Waser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: :-)The ones controlling the company are that set of trustworthy owners that I mentioned before. One of the reasons why I'm not giving out intermediate options is to prevent questions/problems like this. I *do* understand pretty well how VCs think/operate and the biggest drawback is going to be that, in order to protect the AGI, we're not going to be willing to give up a majority share. - Original Message - *From:* Benjamin Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] *To:* agi@v2.listbox.com *Sent:* Sunday, June 03, 2007 9:08 PM *Subject:* Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium Because, unless they take a majority share, they want to know who it is they're dealing with... i.e. who is controlling the company One of the most important things an investor looks at is THE PEOPLE who are controlling the company, and in your scheme, it is not clear who that is... Yes, you can say I control the company even though I don't have a controlling set of shares, but investors are not likely to trust, this, because they view financial ownership as the essence of motivation [since that is what motivates them, by and large] -- 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/?; - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On Jun 3, 2007, at 6:20 PM, Benjamin Goertzel wrote: So you are going to make a special set of corporate bylaws that disentangle shares from control? Hmmm... Something like: the initial trustworthy owners are given temporary trusteeship over the shares, but are then bound to distribute them according to the wishes of the AGI once the AGI passes some threshold level of intelligence?? Disentangling shares from control in a way that is actually bulletproof and/or legally viable is difficult and relatively expensive. The laws and regulations are generally written specifically to make that a pain for anything resembling a for-profit entity. It requires a high degree of trust between multiple parties to make it fly without having an unambiguous controlling financial interest. One State in the United States (all corporate law is state law for most purposes) explicitly allows the creation of non-economic interests in limited liability constructs: Nevada. As far as I know it is unique to that State, but it allows one to completely separate control from equity. This only applies to LLCs rather than Corporations out of practical necessity, I believe due to securities regulations, but it allows 100% of the control to be granted to a party that has no financial interest in the organization and which has no obligations and receives no profits. It is obvious this class of entity was designed to allow the creation of a controlling interest that lacks de facto exposure because the mechanism of control has no intrinsic financial value, unlike control that is tied to equity of some type. Incidentally, control of equity must ultimately resolve to a Natural Person. Your AGI will have no legal ownership of anything. But I guess you can worry about that later... Cheers, J. Andrew Rogers - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On Jun 3, 2007, at 5:52 PM, Mark Waser wrote: So, the share allocation is left undetermined, to be determined by the AGI someday? That's what I'm saying currently. The reality is that my project actually has a clear intermediate product that would cleanly allow all current contributors to determine an intermediate distribution -- but I'm really not ready to discuss (or more importantly defend) that yet so it's better to just take it as -- Yes, it will be the AGI. You may be assuming flexibility in the securities and tax regulations than actually exists now. They've tightened things up quite a bit over the last ten years. Equity and pseudo-equity (like incentive stock options -- ISOs) should be contracted at the earliest possible time, and before either financial or delivery milestones if at all possible, if you care about the value you will actually be delivering to your contributors. Furthermore, you cannot grant equity instruments to just anyone, and pseudo-equity instruments like ISOs have a ton of rules that limit their ability to return fair value to your contributors. And then there is the what-if of dissolution, acquisition, etc in which a pre-AGI determination of equity ownership needs to be figured out -- the way you've set it up, the contributors would be entitled to squat. This kinds of things are pretty strictly regulated now, and waiting until the end to contract a stake to your contributors would be a disaster for them in terms of both their return and/or tax liability, never mind the unpleasant scenarios that can occur. I cannot imagine that a savvy person would accept deferred contracting of options and equity. It would be one of the worst possible equity stake schemes I have seen. The closest *decent* way to do what you want to do is to contract options upfront with modifying conditions and qualifications based on future performance. Cheers, J. Andrew Rogers - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On Jun 1, 2007, at 2:33 PM, YKY (Yan King Yin) wrote: How about some brainstorming...? My proposal is this: 1. People post their ideas onto a wiki and discuss them, while carefully keeping a record of who has said what. Also, each person suggests an amount of how much the contribution is worth. If the amount is outrageous people can make complaints about it. 2. Suppose the group end up with some useful ideas / algorithms. Each result will be collectively owned by that result's contributors. Lots of luck keeping that straight. 3. Suppose someone (a developer) wants to take a result and implement it? The developer will have to pay a license fee to the contributors, the fee being proportional to the total estimated worth of its constituents. A result? A group of ideas and theory is not a result in my mind until it is successfully implemented. As the developer would be more or less working for free or for far less than her normal rate I think it is ludicrous that she also be expected to pay for ideas to develop. 4. Also, everyone who participates, must sign a non-disclosure and non-competitive agreement (NDA NCA). There should also be some way to verify the person's identity. Non-disclosure is one thing. But I will not promise to never branch out on my own using in part things I have learned. I will not shackle my mind like that and certainly not without compensation. 5. I think this scheme can work for existing AGI projects like Novamente. It will not compromise the control over their ideas / intellectual property because of the NDA NCA. 6. If something is deemed patent-worthy, the patent will be collectively owned as in (2). The licensing price will be set analogous to (2), so it won't be outrageous. It looks like the brainstormers and idea people get some ownership but implementors get less than zilch as they have to pay to participate. Was that on purpose? How's that? It sucks. - samantha - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On Jun 1, 2007, at 4:07 PM, Bob Mottram wrote: Although I'm an open source fan I don't think I would ever sign up to the things you're proposing. Forcing developers to pay a fee before they use your system simply ensures that no developers will join your project. Yep. Calling such a system open source is a bad joke. It certainly can't be certified as Open Source. The whole saga of non-disclosure, identity verification, anti-competitiveness and software patents I find quite nauseating, as the saying goes like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much loved friend. When true AGI emerges I sincerely hope that it does not appear within the confines of this kind of restrictive system. Yes. It is hard to get to anything at all utopian when massively better technology gets applied in the service of such restriction on thoughts, ideas and the flow of information and creativity. Powerful new technology concentrated into the hands of a few individuals who exclusively monopolise its use could cause a great deal of damage in my opinion, and hinder its wider application especially within developing countries. We see a lot of this today. They become pirates or go with F/OSS solutions. - samantha - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On 6/2/07, Benjamin Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What you are suggesting, sounds like a mess that would not work... One problem with your suggestion is that the assignment of credit problem is really really hard. You are trying to solve it via a scheme of collective contribution ratings, and I don't think that can work in a context where the interactions between contributions are so complex, and the time-scales on which different contributions are helpful vary so widely. No, it's not exactly collective contribution rating. It's actually self-rating guarded by peers being able to file complaints. Notice that this can be very simple and efficient because only *one* person is doing the rating per idea. With a group of reasonable people it has a high chance of working. Also, some ideas may be derived from earlier ideas. We can keep track of that too. All this does not need to be extremely complex; they're just an approximation. Even in a traditionally managed company, this credit-assignment can be inaccurate or unfair, sometimes merely due to the fact that managers are human too and have limited time. Letting people rate their own ideas would actually increase job satisfaction, I'd predict... YKY - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On 02/06/07, YKY (Yan King Yin) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: the market). Anyway I propose to remedy this problem by fixing the license price of all patents we acquire, by applying a fixed formula based on individuals' assessment of their contributions. From having worked on open source projects previously I think you could be entering a world of pain here, because who assesses individual contributions and upon what basis do you divide up the cash. You'll have developers wasting a lot of time arguing about why their particular contribution was bigger or more important than the next guys. You keep mentioning the utopia/dystopia constrast but is your idea of utopia really attainable? Is your utopia where everyone should give out their ideas for free? Certainly not. Actually I don't believe in utopias, but am basically guided pragmatically towards the kinds of solutions which are most likely to produce friendly outcomes, and where there is the minimum opportunity for unscrupulous individuals to undermine development or arbitrarily restrict its application. In the world of industry I've seen situations where particular technologies were developed and then ring-fenced by astronomically expensive licences such that only a tiny number of large corporations had access to it. It seems to me that this sort of situation could also easily apply to AI development. As a recent example of this kind of behavior I'd cite certain robotics APIs, and also some of the APIs used for advanced camera based surveillance systems. Or do you agree that inventors of algorithms etc should be rewarded through *some* accounting methods? The point of my proposal is to reasonably estimate the worth of ideas and thus setting a limit to what patents can extort. Well I wouldn't have anything to do with software patents, because ultimately they punish small software developers like myself. I don't have either the time or inclination to be a legal expert and research every algorithm before implementing it. Maybe developers can pay a very small up-front fee in cash, with the rest paid by shares of the future software product? That'd be affordable by developers running on low budgets. Some small fee for an API would be fine, but requiring developers to be anti-competitive seems very unrealistic. - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On 6/2/07, Samantha Atkins [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 3. Suppose someone (a developer) wants to take a result and implement it? The developer will have to pay a license fee to the contributors, the fee being proportional to the total estimated worth of its constituents. A result? A group of ideas and theory is not a result in my mind until it is successfully implemented. As the developer would be more or less working for free or for far less than her normal rate I think it is ludicrous that she also be expected to pay for ideas to develop. Yes, it's better to let developers pay with shares of the *future* software product. 4. Also, everyone who participates, must sign a non-disclosure and non-competitive agreement (NDA NCA). There should also be some way to verify the person's identity. Non-disclosure is one thing. But I will not promise to never branch out on my own using in part things I have learned. I will not shackle my mind like that and certainly not without compensation. That's a good point... It may be difficult for a member to pull out when all the ideas are interlocked. So let's scrape the anti-competition bit and replace it with this clause: members are allowed to branch out on their own projects as long as they pay (again with shares) for the ideas previously submitted to the official project. Perhaps also set an expiry period of 5-10 years for this. Payment in the form of shares is unlikely to be a great burden, at least they'd not be debilitating... 6. If something is deemed patent-worthy, the patent will be collectively owned as in (2). The licensing price will be set analogous to (2), so it won't be outrageous. It looks like the brainstormers and idea people get some ownership but implementors get less than zilch as they have to pay to participate. Was that on purpose? No... let me refine this: a) developers can pay with future shares, so there's no up-front costs to them, or just a small cost b) in fact, the whole scheme can be extended to developers by treating code and ideas the same way. So the distinction between design and implementation would be blurred. There could be many developers working on different branches at the same time... YKY - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On 6/2/07, Bob Mottram [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From having worked on open source projects previously I think you could be entering a world of pain here, because who assesses individual contributions and upon what basis do you divide up the cash. You'll have developers wasting a lot of time arguing about why their particular contribution was bigger or more important than the next guys. If members submit many contributions, slight inaccuracies will be evened out, and there's no point making a big fuss about small ones. If a big dispute occurs we can set up an expert committee and use voting. In the world of industry I've seen situations where particular technologies were developed and then ring-fenced by astronomically expensive licences such that only a tiny number of large corporations had access to it. It seems to me that this sort of situation could also easily apply to AI development. As a recent example of this kind of behavior I'd cite certain robotics APIs, and also some of the APIs used for advanced camera based surveillance systems. [...] Well I wouldn't have anything to do with software patents, because ultimately they punish small software developers like myself. I don't have either the time or inclination to be a legal expert and research every algorithm before implementing it. Business has become very high stake nowadays, you must accept that or be left out of the game. This consortium is actually trying to help individuals and small developers by giving them leverage. Some small fee for an API would be fine, but requiring developers to be anti-competitive seems very unrealistic. Ok, anti-competition will be replaced by agreeing to pay the mother project when using its ideas on external projects. YKY - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
I've been doing a lot of the same thought process for what I'm trying to set up. Here are the conclusions that I've come to (some of which are very close to yours and some which vary tremendously). 1. People post their ideas into some layered set of systems that records them permanently (a wiki or three is fine for ideas initially as long as it maintains complete histories but code needs to go somewhere better protected). Self-suggested values are nonsense, however, and people have to be aware of the fact that the AGI will eventually do a search for prior art (i.e. they will get some credit for introducing the idea but not as if it were their own invention). People will *eventually* be rewarded either by the AGI (if such occurs) or by a consensus of active contributors (if rewards are necessary before an AGI occurs). 2. The project will be incorporated. The intent of the corporation is to 1) protect the AGI and 2) to reward those who created it commensurate with their contributions. 2.1 New ideas/algorithms/code can be submitted under a variety of arrangements. The more that the arrangement favors the corporation, the more the contributor will be rewarded down the line (or more immediately if the contribution is used in intermediate profit-making projects). The intent here is to negatively influence defection while making it possible for people with extant AGI projects to participate. Note that the corporation will be more than willing to accept contributions from (or exchanges with) other AGI projects and needs to offer good terms to attract such. 3. It is nearly impossible to determine the source of *many* ideas; however, code that is developed from ideas that are clearly developed within the corporation belongs to the corporation (but, obviously, the code counts as a major contribution by the author). All derivatives of the code belong to the corporation. The contributor or anyone else with the corporation can sell the executable of such code at the corporation's profit. Needless to say, however, the corporation will reward that person accordingly and nothing prevents that executable from being embedded in some other product (or AGI project) with a reasonable licensing fee (or other compensation). 4. Identity verification is mandatory. There will be several levels of access to the corporation's work/results and access to the source code of the various modules will be granted on a need to know basis (yet another advantage to a good modular design with good interfaces) as determined by the corporations Board of Directors or it's designee(s). 4.1 Idea bleed to other extant AGI projects is unavoidable. What we need to prevent is the harvesting of the corporation's assets for the benefit of another project with no return. As long as an individual/project has contributed sufficiently, access to the source of additional modules will be granted singly as necessary (although it is unclear to me that a single individual is going to be that interested in the low-level source of that many modules -- unless, of course, they're just interested in running through them all and improving the code -- which just makes that person an asset and someone that we want to get vested in the corporation). 4.2 NDAs and NCAs are fundamentally un-enforceable except at the largest and highest levels. The corporation will have honor contracts/agreements, however, and the corporation or the AGI can release information about these (or act upon them regarding eventual compensation) as it sees fit. 5. The software patent system is fundamentally broken. We need some way to quickly register any obvious innovations as prior art to avoid patent trolls but otherwise steer clear of the patent system (note: this emphatically does not mean stealing other's ideas, however). The entire point here is to make it beneficial for an individual and other projects to contribute to (or make equitable exchanges with) the project while attempting to reduce the probability of theft without recompense. The fundamental problem with Open Source, particularly during development, is that there is more incentive for defection and theft at a well-chosen moment than there is for remaining with a project. Thus, this is not going to be Open Source (though a committed, contributing individual will eventually be able to see all of the source). This is also not a one-vote-per-person democracy. Influence will be commensurate with contribution (and the best way to influence the direction of the project is to put in effort and contributions in that direction) although good suggestions are always welcome (regardless of source) and will always be implemented (with credit to the contributor) if appropriate. How's that? - Original Message - From: YKY (Yan King Yin) To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 5:33 PM Subject: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On Saturday 02 June 2007 04:35:57 am Samantha Atkins wrote: On Jun 1, 2007, at 4:07 PM, Bob Mottram wrote: Although I'm an open source fan I don't think I would ever sign up to the things you're proposing. Forcing developers to pay a fee before they use your system simply ensures that no developers will join your project. Yep. Calling such a system open source is a bad joke. It certainly can't be certified as Open Source. Indeed. I would go so far as to predict that such a project would violate GPL3 at least, and thus couldn't use existing open source software (e.g. Linux). Personally, I use a huge amount of open source stuff, and I feel it's only right for me to contribute what I produce back into the pool. I'm MUCH better off building on that base than trying to reinvent it or buy it. Josh - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
RE: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
Mark Waser writes: . The project will be incorporated. The intent of the corporation is to 1) protect the AGI and 2) to reward those who created it commensurate with their contributions.Interesting setup. I fear that this and YKY's project will have difficulty attracting contributors, as AGI folk appear to be rather cranky individualists, but I hope it works out for you! Even though this discussion (and the spinoff software engineering vs algorithms pissing contest) is rather long, it's interesting. For a for-profit AGI project I suggest the following definition of intelligence: The ability to create information-based objects of economic value. - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On 6/2/07, Derek Zahn [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: For a for-profit AGI project I suggest the following definition of intelligence: The ability to create information-based objects of economic value. What about: The ability to create information-based objects generating income. This is less ambiguous and more demanding. - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
RE: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
Lukasz Stafiniak writes: What about: The ability to create information-based objects generating income. Sure. General intelligence would then refer to the range of object types it can create. information-based could be omitted but it saves argument about whether a chair factory should be considered intelligent. After all the recent hubub about definitions, it seems to me that an individual project should pick a plausible-enough one that focuses effort on the vision behind the approach or goals of the project, and if it includes implicitly a way of judging incremental progress, that's a big benefit. - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
Interesting setup. I fear that this and YKY's project will have difficulty attracting contributors, as AGI folk appear to be rather cranky individualists, but I hope it works out for you! Even though this discussion (and the spinoff software engineering vs algorithms pissing contest) is rather long, it's interesting. For a for-profit AGI project I suggest the following definition of intelligence: The ability to create information-based objects of economic value. Actually, for the project that I'm setting up, the immediate goal is very different from an AGI and likely to be profitable long before AGI (assuming that AGI is that far behind it -- since it does build most of the major tools and paradigms that I think are necessary for AGI in what I believe is a well-structured obtainable way :-). I'm hoping that if I can convince people of the path that I can convince them to contribute. Of course, it's taking me a good long time to coherently write up the path . . . . :-) - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On 6/2/07, Mark Waser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 1. People post their ideas into some layered set of systems that records them permanently (a wiki or three is fine for ideas initially as long as it maintains complete histories but code needs to go somewhere better protected). Self-suggested values are nonsense, however, and people have to be aware of the fact that the AGI will eventually do a search for prior art (i.e. they will get some credit for introducing the idea but not as if it were their own invention). People will *eventually* be rewarded either by the AGI (if such occurs) or by a consensus of active contributors (if rewards are necessary before an AGI occurs). $$ How are you going to estimate the worth of contributions *before* we have AGI? I mean, people need to get paid in the interim. Self-rating is easy, simple, and can be corrected by peers if necessary, eg hey, this idea is actually due to . 2. The project will be incorporated. The intent of the corporation is to 1) protect the AGI and 2) to reward those who created it commensurate with their contributions. $ Incorporation is fine. 2.1 New ideas/algorithms/code can be submitted under a variety of arrangements. The more that the arrangement favors the corporation, the more the contributor will be rewarded down the line (or more immediately if the contribution is used in intermediate profit-making projects). The intent here is to negatively influence defection while making it possible for people with extant AGI projects to participate. Note that the corporation will be more than willing to accept contributions from (or exchanges with) other AGI projects and needs to offer good terms to attract such. $ You have not defined these arrangements and your scheme, if too complex, would lack transparency. 3. It is nearly impossible to determine the source of *many* ideas; however, code that is developed from ideas that are clearly developed within the corporation belongs to the corporation (but, obviously, the code counts as a major contribution by the author). All derivatives of the code belong to the corporation. The contributor or anyone else with the corporation can sell the executable of such code at the corporation's profit. Needless to say, however, the corporation will reward that person accordingly and nothing prevents that executable from being embedded in some other product (or AGI project) with a reasonable licensing fee (or other compensation). $ I think contributions should belong to the very people who contributed them, as recorded by the contribution history; and that includes code. They can later take the code and use the code for outside projects, *provided* that they pay for the price of those contributions. Let's call this the *outside project indebtedness* clause. 4. Identity verification is mandatory. There will be several levels of access to the corporation's work/results and access to the source code of the various modules will be granted on a need to know basis (yet another advantage to a good modular design with good interfaces) as determined by the corporations Board of Directors or it's designee(s). $$ I'd champion *open access* to the body of work once a member agrees to the terms. How do you determine who needs to know something? 4.1 Idea bleed to other extant AGI projects is unavoidable. What we need to prevent is the harvesting of the corporation's assets for the benefit of another project with no return. As long as an individual/project has contributed sufficiently, access to the source of additional modules will be granted singly as necessary (although it is unclear to me that a single individual is going to be that interested in the low-level source of that many modules -- unless, of course, they're just interested in running through them all and improving the code -- which just makes that person an asset and someone that we want to get vested in the corporation). $ Under the outside project indebtedness clause, idea bleed can be prevented (and in a mutually beneficial way too). Also, you seem to want too much secrecy, which may turn off people. I *guess* what people want is more openness, even though this consortium cannot be exactly called opensource / free. 4.2 NDAs and NCAs are fundamentally un-enforceable except at the largest and highest levels. The corporation will have honor contracts/agreements, however, and the corporation or the AGI can release information about these (or act upon them regarding eventual compensation) as it sees fit. $$$ I think NCAs should be replaced by the outside project indebtedness (OPI) clause. NDAs are very common and should not be a problem, given that people can start outside projects under OPI.
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
I hope to create a project where members feel *happy* in it, instead of like a torture chamber. Please note, successful commercial companies and open-source projects do seem to feature happy participants ... I am in favor of innovative project structures, but so far as I can tell, the structure you've described seems complex and unlikely to work... But hey, I'll be pleased if you prove me wrong ;-) Ben G - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
How are you going to estimate the worth of contributions *before* we have AGI? I mean, people need to get paid in the interim. For my project, don't count on getting paid in the short-term interim. Where's the money going to come from? Do you expect your project to pay people in the interim? If the corporation does have an influx of cash (due to an intermediate success), a consensus of active contributors would have to decide how much to share out and how much to retain as seed money (and I would push real hard for the majority, if not all, of it to be retained as seed money -- unless it were the result of a single or small number of contributors who needed to be rewarded with a substantial chunk). If the corporation has an influx of cash due to an investor or benefactor, it would all be kept as seed money to hire individuals (whose contributions would be recognized at a reduced rate due to their paid status). Self-rating is easy, simple, and can be corrected by peers if necessary, eg hey, this idea is actually due to . Self-rating (like self-evaluation) is worthless. You have not defined these arrangements and your scheme, if too complex, would lack transparency. Complexity does not eliminate transparency. It is merely frequently used as an excuse for not being transparent. All arrangements will be transparent after being entered into. I'm not pre-defining them because I want flexibility and because, quite frankly, I expect that the best suggestions are going to come from the people who want to enter into the agreements. I think contributions should belong to the very people who contributed them, as recorded by the contribution history; and that includes code. They can later take the code and use the code for outside projects, *provided* that they pay for the price of those contributions. Let's call this the outside project indebtedness clause I understand the thought here but what happens when the code has been heavily modified by multiple individuals (several of whom have put in more work than the original contributor) or when the current code is a fusion of code initially separately contributed by several individuals, modified by several more, fused by yet another, and then modified by several more? Whose code is it? Attribution is a huge problem. I'd champion open access to the body of work once a member agrees to the terms. How do you determine who needs to know something? If someone is going to work on the module's internals to give it a new capability or improve it's performance then they need to know. Otherwise, all they need to know is the module interface. People obtaining access to multiple modules and not contributing anything back are going to be deemed as not needing to know anything. Under the outside project indebtedness clause, idea bleed can be prevented (and in a mutually beneficial way too). Also, you seem to want too much secrecy, which may turn off people. I guess what people want is more openness, even though this consortium cannot be exactly called opensource / free. To implement your outside project indebtedness clause, you have to be able to track idea bleed. I contend that this is simply impossible. Also, you seem to want too much secrecy, which may turn off people. I guess what people want is more openness, even though this consortium cannot be exactly called opensource / free. Hmmm. All I'm doing is restricting detailed, low-level information access to an intent-to-contribute basis and asking for contribution in return. As I said, if you want to whip through each of the modules in turn and improve them, you'll have access to everything. I'm just actively slowing down the people who are only in it to harvest and run. I don't believe that people want unfettered access to their work without a benefit to them. NDAs are very common and should not be a problem, given that people can start outside projects under OPI. NDAs are very common and fundamentally useless *except* as an understanding to keep honest people honest. The honor contracts do the same thing without the legal intimidation factor (which I've repeatedly seen stop people from joining and contributing to projects that they'd otherwise have joined). It seems that your strategy is based on trade secrets instead of patents. An accurate assessment. Asking a member to keep contributing to gain access to the source sounds like the corporate ladder. Also, some individuals may be able to contribute at the top level yet suck at the bottom levels. I don't understand your concept of a corporate ladder. You seem to have an innate distrust of organized organizations. I, personally, have far more of a fear of organizations that trust people to act in the best interests of all even when there are *very easy* alternatives that are far more lucrative personally. Further, people contributing even to the
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On Jun 2, 2007, at 10:37 AM, Mark Waser wrote: If the corporation does have an influx of cash (due to an intermediate success), a consensus of active contributors would have to decide how much to share out and how much to retain as seed money (and I would push real hard for the majority, if not all, of it to be retained as seed money -- unless it were the result of a single or small number of contributors who needed to be rewarded with a substantial chunk). If the corporation has an influx of cash due to an investor or benefactor, it would all be kept as seed money to hire individuals (whose contributions would be recognized at a reduced rate due to their paid status). It is worth pointing out that compensation, equity issues, and oversight are highly regulated. About half of the organizational and compensation ideas I've seen proposed would require an army of lawyers to arrange, have serious consequences that have apparently been overlooked, or would simply be illegal under current law. There a complex tax issues that have to be understood as well. Things used to be more flexible, but they've been tightening the screws on creative organization for years in order to do something about perceived business malfeasance. The result is that there are complex rules and hoops you have to jump through that get worse every year, some highly restrictive, if you want to legally organize and operate a venture. Cheers, J. Andrew Rogers - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On 6/3/07, Benjamin Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I hope to create a project where members feel *happy* in it, instead of like a torture chamber. Please note, successful commercial companies and open-source projects do seem to feature happy participants ... I am in favor of innovative project structures, but so far as I can tell, the structure you've described seems complex and unlikely to work... Yes, thanks for pointing that out =) Trying to keep track of the value of every little piece of idea is just too... anal retentive. Also, self- or peer- rating, when done openly, is also very psychologically taxing, and greatly reduces the fun and happiness. I'll keep thinking... Basically what we need is a simple mechanism for people to share their secret ideas and increase collaboration, and yet don't lose credit for their contributions. YKY - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
I'll keep thinking... Basically what we need is a simple mechanism for people to share their secret ideas and increase collaboration, and yet don't lose credit for their contributions. YKY -- It's a hard problem. Even within Novamente, which is a small group of friends, fair assignment of equity based on past and future AI contributions has been a pain to negotiate in a mutually acceptable way [but I won't discuss details here] ... -- Ben G - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On 6/3/07, Mark Waser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: For my project, don't count on getting paid in the short-term interim. Where's the money going to come from? Do you expect your project to pay people in the interim? $$$ Yes, I believe there're people capable of producing income-generating stuff in the interim. I can't predict how the project would evolve, but am optimistic. If the corporation does have an influx of cash (due to an intermediate success), a consensus of active contributors would have to decide how much to share out and how much to retain as seed money (and I would push real hard for the majority, if not all, of it to be retained as seed money -- unless it were the result of a single or small number of contributors who needed to be rewarded with a substantial chunk). If the corporation has an influx of cash due to an investor or benefactor, it would all be kept as seed money to hire individuals (whose contributions would be recognized at a reduced rate due to their paid status). $$$ That's fine with me. Self-rating (like self-evaluation) is worthless. $$$ Ok I can accept your critique. We can use a combination of self- and peer- rating and a managerial board. But rating-per-idea is just computationally unfeasible with human processors. Maybe we'll periodically have an assessment of the *overall* contribution of each member, say every 3 months. Complexity does not eliminate transparency. It is merely frequently used as an excuse for not being transparent. All arrangements will be transparent after being entered into. I'm not pre-defining them because I want flexibility and because, quite frankly, I expect that the best suggestions are going to come from the people who want to enter into the agreements. $$$ If you flexibly enter contracts with partners on an individual basis, that's what I call opaque. And that's like a conventional company, with interviews etc that slow down and obfuscate recruitment. I understand the thought here but what happens when the code has been heavily modified by multiple individuals (several of whom have put in more work than the original contributor) or when the current code is a fusion of code initially separately contributed by several individuals, modified by several more, fused by yet another, and then modified by several more? Whose code is it? Attribution is a huge problem. $$$ In that case, the code should be jointly owned by all the contributors you mentioned above. Attribution may be done via a combination of self- and peer- rating and managerial board arbitration. If someone is going to work on the module's internals to give it a new capability or improve it's performance then they need to know. Otherwise, all they need to know is the module interface. People obtaining access to multiple modules and not contributing anything back are going to be deemed as not needing to know anything. $$$ If someone has signed an agreement to pay the consortium for things they take from it, then there is no need to put on these red-tape. Anyway, this is trivial. To implement your outside project indebtedness clause, you have to be able to track idea bleed. I contend that this is simply impossible. $$$ I think if people trust the attribution mechanism, this is well possible. Hmmm. All I'm doing is restricting detailed, low-level information access to an intent-to-contribute basis and asking for contribution in return. As I said, if you want to whip through each of the modules in turn and improve them, you'll have access to everything. I'm just actively slowing down the people who are only in it to harvest and run. $$ How do you judge intent-to-contribute? Seems arbitrary to me. I think the real issue here is your fear of harvest and run. That's why I propose the outside projects are indebted to the original project clause to turn harvest and run into harvest, profit, and be grateful to the originators. I don't believe that people want unfettered access to their work without a benefit to them. $$ That's not unfettered access. That's protected by the outside projects should pay originators clause. NDAs are very common and fundamentally useless *except* as an understanding to keep honest people honest. The honor contracts do the same thing without the legal intimidation factor (which I've repeatedly seen stop people from joining and contributing to projects that they'd otherwise have joined). $ You haven't explained what these honor contracts mean. I think people don't join projects for various reasons, depending on the details of the contracts, not simply because there's legal language. I
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
Yes, I believe there're people capable of producing income-generating stuff in the interim. I can't predict how the project would evolve, but am optimistic. Ask Ben about how much that affects a project . . . . If you flexibly enter contracts with partners on an individual basis, that's what I call opaque. Then your definition of transparent and opaque are seriously non-standard. Transparency has to do with the release of monitoring information, nothing else. And that's like a conventional company, with interviews etc that slow down and obfuscate recruitment. Huh? You really have it in for conventional companies, don't you? And by the way, being willing to negotiate separate agreements on an individual basis is *NOT* like the traditional hiring policies of a conventional company (except for high-level executives). The only thing that most companies negotiate is salary . . . . In that case, the code should be jointly owned by all the contributors you mentioned above. Attribution may be done via a combination of self- and peer- rating and managerial board arbitration. Nope. I don't buy it. That is *not* a feasible scheme. If someone has signed an agreement to pay the consortium for things they take from it, then there is no need to put on these red-tape. Anyway, this is trivial. Try proving that someone has stolen code from your company. Unless they pretty much immediately turn around and commercialize exactly what they stole, you'll never succeed. I think if people trust the attribution mechanism, this is well possible. OK. So give me an attribution mechanism that I can trust. All your previous efforts are so far short than I'm not even laughing. How do you judge intent-to-contribute? Seems arbitrary to me. Intent to contribute is simply the person saying I would like to add the following functionality to the following module OR I would like to see if I could improve the accuracy of the following module OR I would like to see if I could solve the current incorrect behavior of the following module OR . . . . (you get the idea). I would call that generous and flexible rather than arbitrary -- which normally means capriciously saying no. I think the real issue here is your fear of harvest and run. That's why I propose the outside projects are indebted to the original project clause to turn harvest and run into harvest, profit, and be grateful to the originators. Give the man a cigar! But my point is that your clause is nowhere near sufficient to protect you from the real world. It's touching but tremendously naive. That's not unfettered access. That's protected by the outside projects should pay originators clause. You have far too much faith in legal documentation. It's touching but tremendously naive. You haven't explained what these honor contracts mean. Because I thought that the meaning was rather obvious. They are simply contracts that focus more upon the working details rather than the teeth. The process will catch potential defectors before they harvest too much and the honor contract ensures that they can't claim ignorance. Your process relies upon catching the harvesting horse after it's out of the barn. I think people don't join projects for various reasons, depending on the details of the contracts, not simply because there's legal language. You thoughts are all very nice but I know of numerous solid examples where people felt that they couldn't contribute to a project that they would have enjoyed helping because of the fear of legal entanglements and excessive litigation. I do have some dislike for authorities, but I'm trying to suppress that tendency in order to work with others. I don't agree that people can very easily harvest and run from my project, since they're legally bound to pay for what they take, and that payment, in the form of shares, won't kill them. All in all, it's a pretty good deal they're entering. Legally bound often doesn't mean much. Honest people honor it but thieves always exist. Sometime I should tell the full story of how: 1.. Two partners approached CitiCorp with an idea. 2.. CitiCorp liked the idea but correctly identified one partner as a thief 3.. The two partners split up with a whole host of legal documents intending to make it possible for the honest partner to pursue the business with CitiCorp in return for a lot of money to the thief (and the legal documents made it *quite* clear that this is what was going on). 4.. CitiCorp accepted the idea and began paying for development. 5.. After two years of detailed design and development, as delivery drew near, the thief sprang back in and attempted to use the legal system to extort more money out of the partner and Citicorp 6.. At one point, development was even stopped because an ignorant judge insisting on escrowing payments from CitiCorp that were being used to pay
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
On 6/2/07, Mark Waser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, I believe there're people capable of producing income-generating stuff in the interim. I can't predict how the project would evolve, but am optimistic. Ask Ben about how much that affects a project . . . . The need to create commercial products in the interim stages of an AGI project places a tremendous burden and constraint on the project. This should be pretty obvious. As an analogue, consider quantum computing. 10 years ago, as a commercial enterprise, it was a total non-starter. Now there are some commercial QC companies springing up, but they're pretty much just spending investment $$, not bringing in revenue from products. Only once QC is a lot more mature will it be possible to bring in revenue from incremental developments in the course of research. This doesn't mean QC is bullshit. It just means it is at an RD phase rather than a productization phase. I think that AGI is somewhat similar to QC in this regard. But what is misleading is that AGI systems may share some technology components with narrow-AI systems, which are indeed (in many cases) incrementally monetizable in incremental stages. Now, here is what happened with Novamente. We spent 5-6 years of slow part-time development, designing and building our system. And now, finally, we are at a point where we can generate revenue from ongoing incremental improvements of the system. Now we have a system that can useful control learning agents in 3D virtual worlds, which is a viable business market. And as we make the system smarter and smarter over the coming years, we will be able to monetize the improved versions via launching more and more useful virtual agents. So, I think we can now make the fund AGI RD via profits gained from monetization of incrementally improving system versions model work. But if so, it is only because a) we found a business niche that fits our AGI design and its early-stage capabilities, and is also a hot market b) ***we put in a whole bunch of time doing pure RD work first*** ... funding it mostly via (very modest) profits from narrow-AI consulting work; and also a tiny amount of investment money -- Ben G - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
[agi] Open AGI Consortium
How about some brainstorming...? My proposal is this: 1. People post their ideas onto a wiki and discuss them, while carefully keeping a record of who has said what. Also, each person suggests an amount of how much the contribution is worth. If the amount is outrageous people can make complaints about it. 2. Suppose the group end up with some useful ideas / algorithms. Each result will be collectively owned by that result's contributors. 3. Suppose someone (a developer) wants to take a result and implement it? The developer will have to pay a license fee to the contributors, the fee being proportional to the total estimated worth of its constituents. 4. Also, everyone who participates, must sign a non-disclosure and non-competitive agreement (NDA NCA). There should also be some way to verify the person's identity. 5. I think this scheme can work for existing AGI projects like Novamente. It will not compromise the control over their ideas / intellectual property because of the NDA NCA. 6. If something is deemed patent-worthy, the patent will be collectively owned as in (2). The licensing price will be set analogous to (2), so it won't be outrageous. How's that? YKY - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
Ownership of things and establishing who owns what seems to be very important to humans. One time I bought my two young nephews identical toys, and then subsequently watched them fighting over who owned which toy - even though they were exactly alike. What does it mean to own something, and do other animals have a concept of ownership? If I own something I may to some extent monopolise its usage, but what about things which I own but rarely or never use? Can I own something non-physical, like an idea, and if so what does that really mean? Can I own an idea which I duplicated and then modified slightly according to my unique needs? Although I'm an open source fan I don't think I would ever sign up to the things you're proposing. Forcing developers to pay a fee before they use your system simply ensures that no developers will join your project. The whole saga of non-disclosure, identity verification, anti-competitiveness and software patents I find quite nauseating, as the saying goes like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much loved friend. When true AGI emerges I sincerely hope that it does not appear within the confines of this kind of restrictive system. Powerful new technology concentrated into the hands of a few individuals who exclusively monopolise its use could cause a great deal of damage in my opinion, and hinder its wider application especially within developing countries. Instead I would prefer to see something more akin to a balance of power, where nobody really owns the system and it is open to extensive public scrutiny and debate. A more open approach is more likely to lead to a positive singularity, as opposed to some of the dystopian scenarios. On 01/06/07, YKY (Yan King Yin) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: How about some brainstorming...? My proposal is this: 1. People post their ideas onto a wiki and discuss them, while carefully keeping a record of who has said what. Also, each person suggests an amount of how much the contribution is worth. If the amount is outrageous people can make complaints about it. 2. Suppose the group end up with some useful ideas / algorithms. Each result will be collectively owned by that result's contributors. 3. Suppose someone (a developer) wants to take a result and implement it? The developer will have to pay a license fee to the contributors, the fee being proportional to the total estimated worth of its constituents. 4. Also, everyone who participates, must sign a non-disclosure and non-competitive agreement (NDA NCA). There should also be some way to verify the person's identity. 5. I think this scheme can work for existing AGI projects like Novamente. It will not compromise the control over their ideas / intellectual property because of the NDA NCA. 6. If something is deemed patent-worthy, the patent will be collectively owned as in (2). The licensing price will be set analogous to (2), so it won't be outrageous. How's that? YKY 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/?; - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
Re: [agi] Open AGI Consortium
Hmmm... Proprietary works. Open source works. Each has their flaws, but both basically do work for generating software via collective human effort... What you are suggesting, sounds like a mess that would not work... One problem with your suggestion is that the assignment of credit problem is really really hard. You are trying to solve it via a scheme of collective contribution ratings, and I don't think that can work in a context where the interactions between contributions are so complex, and the time-scales on which different contributions are helpful vary so widely. Open-source solves this problem by largely avoiding it: credit=status in the open-source world, but precise quantification of status is never required. Proprietary solves this problem by giving certain individuals (managers) the power to judge contributions of individuals on a project-wide scale. Managers' judgments are not always perfect, of course, but in a well-run organization they are generally meaningful... -- Ben G On 6/1/07, YKY (Yan King Yin) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: How about some brainstorming...? My proposal is this: 1. People post their ideas onto a wiki and discuss them, while carefully keeping a record of who has said what. Also, each person suggests an amount of how much the contribution is worth. If the amount is outrageous people can make complaints about it. 2. Suppose the group end up with some useful ideas / algorithms. Each result will be collectively owned by that result's contributors. 3. Suppose someone (a developer) wants to take a result and implement it? The developer will have to pay a license fee to the contributors, the fee being proportional to the total estimated worth of its constituents. 4. Also, everyone who participates, must sign a non-disclosure and non-competitive agreement (NDA NCA). There should also be some way to verify the person's identity. 5. I think this scheme can work for existing AGI projects like Novamente. It will not compromise the control over their ideas / intellectual property because of the NDA NCA. 6. If something is deemed patent-worthy, the patent will be collectively owned as in (2). The licensing price will be set analogous to (2), so it won't be outrageous. How's that? YKY -- 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/?; - 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/?member_id=231415user_secret=e9e40a7e
RE: [agi] Open AGI?
My thoughts on the idea of an open AGI project: 1. I think a testbed for AGI already exists, it's called the job market. We should help baby AGIs find work in real job markets. I think there might be some places on the internet trying to find applications of traditional kinds of AIs, but I'm not sure how that applies to the problem of AGI. 2. I think we need a better business model than open source. It'd be a compromise between openness and profitability. YKY Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10 --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [agi] Open AGI?
From: Ben Goertzel [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1. I think a testbed for AGI already exists, it's called the job market. We should help baby AGIs find work in real job markets. I think there might be some places on the internet trying to find applications of traditional kinds of AIs, but I'm not sure how that applies to the problem of AGI. Experience shows that general intelligence is not necessary in order for software to take over many human jobs. Thus, taking over human jobs is not a good general testbed for AGI. It would be a nice thing if the one-shot approach works, provided that the Friendliness problem is also solved. But the incremental approach has it advantages too and it may well turn out that the slower route is faster. YKY Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10 --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[agi] Open AGI?
Hi all, I'm curious about the general sentiments that people have about the appropriate level of openness for an AGI project. My mind certainly isn't made up on the issue and I can see reasons for going either way. If a single individual or small group of people made a sudden break through in AGI design this would place a huge amount of power in their hands. I could easily see this situation being dangerous. On the other hand I'm not sure that I'd want too many people knowing how to do it either! Already the world seems to have a few too many people who have the detailed knowledge required to build a working nuclear weapon for example. What are your thoughts? Surely this has been debated many times before I suppose? Cheers Shane --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] Open AGI?
Shane, I fully agree with what you said. My own plan for NARS is to publish the logic it used in detail (including the grammar of its formal language, the semantics, the inference rules with their truth-value functions), but, at the current time, not to reveal the technical details of the implementation (including the memory structure and control strategy), though the basic ideas behind them are already published. Pei - Original Message - From: Shane Legg [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 4:42 AM Subject: [agi] Open AGI? Hi all, I'm curious about the general sentiments that people have about the appropriate level of openness for an AGI project. My mind certainly isn't made up on the issue and I can see reasons for going either way. If a single individual or small group of people made a sudden break through in AGI design this would place a huge amount of power in their hands. I could easily see this situation being dangerous. On the other hand I'm not sure that I'd want too many people knowing how to do it either! Already the world seems to have a few too many people who have the detailed knowledge required to build a working nuclear weapon for example. What are your thoughts? Surely this has been debated many times before I suppose? Cheers Shane --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [agi] Open AGI?
Shane, I have also considered using massively distributed processing a la [EMAIL PROTECTED] for Novamente; but in a Novamente context, this issue is not closely tied to open-ness. This is because we could use massively distributed processing for aspects of Novamente cognition, without releasing the vast bulk of the Novamente source. Our architecture would involve a central Novamente cluster, doing types of cognitive processing that are better done centralized (mostly probabilistic inference), and then a massively distributed periphery doing things that are better done massively distributed (mostly evolutionary learning). -- Ben G -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Shane Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 9:04 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [agi] Open AGI? Hi Ben, I'm not really interested in open source in the software sense in particular, but rather openness in general. Of course if you open source the code then the project is very open in general too! I see that you run sort of an intermediate approach here, as does Pei. Peter takes a more closed approach with A2I2, which probably reflects his background in business rather than academia. Others like James Rogers take a very closed approach; in fact I don't think I have ever seen a document describing what he is working on? If there are more closed projects out there well we probably wouldn't even hear about them in that case ;-) I understand your desire to limit the number of people working on your code out of purely practical reasons also. However with the emphasis on genetic algorithms in vetta I have another reason to open up the project --- I might actually need the participation of many people donating their CPU time in order to obtain sufficient computer power. I figure that if the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has managed to get 2 million years of CPU time then perhaps a few people out there would also be interested in donating CPU time for a Search for Artificial General Intelligence. Unfortunately SAGI is a really bad sounding name! So vetta it remains. With millions of years of computer time simulating billions of generations on a very large population of learning networks perhaps some interesting evolution could start to take place. However by taking this road the project would be very open as I'd be literally distributing the design of the system as it evolved to a large number of computers all around the world on a regular basis. I'm not sure that this much openness would be a good thing... this is why I got thinking about this question. Cheers Shane ___ Yahoo! Messenger - Communicate instantly...Ping your friends today! Download Messenger Now http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com/download/index.html --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] Open AGI?
I understand that you are not specifically talking about open source, but as the auther of several open source visualization systems (including Vis5D, which was probably the first open source visualization system) I want to point out that there is a real opportunity for someone who starts an open source AGI project. When you provide a good open source system, all kinds of smart people you never heard of send you valuable new functions to add to your software, as well as subjecting your system to much more exhaustive testing than you could (and often sending you bug fixes). Unless you are rich, you can't hire the kind of talent that volunteers to help. I don't know of any current open source AGI project, so there may be the opportunity for someone to create the first. Or is there already one that I'm not aware of? Of course, you have to create a good system (and one that encourages others to dig in and add pieces) in order to create a strong community of programmers around it. You could be the Linus Torvalds of AGI. If I were working on an AGI systems (I'm not, since I'm about to turn 56, about to retire, and currently enjoying a breather from coding my butt off for the past 35 years) I'd definitely see creating the first open source AGI system as a big opportunity. Cheers, Bill -- Bill Hibbard, SSEC, 1225 W. Dayton St., Madison, WI 53706 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 608-263-4427 fax: 608-263-6738 http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/vis.html --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] Open AGI?
Bill, I'd definitely see creating the first open source AGI system as a big opportunity. Do you see any overwhelming risks in making AGI technology available to everyone including malcontents and criminals? Would the rest of society be able to handle these risks if they also had access to AGI computation power?? Cheers, Philip --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] Open AGI?
Shane, In your first posting on the open AGI subject you mentioned that you were concerned about the risk on the one hand of: * inordinate power being concentrated in the hands of the controllers of the first advanced AGI * power to do serious harm being made widely available if AGI technology is available to all. My guess is that if there is very restricted access to a *very* powerful technology - especially one that could be used to make lots of money or be used to make a person or an organisation or nation very powerful in other ways that these sorts of forces will beat a path to the source of that power and they will make sure they have it (by whatever means works). All it will take I suspect is a serious demonstration of the 'proof of concept' and this process will be set decisively in motion. Making the whole technology available to everyone would be one way to avoid the concentration of power, but it would put the technology in the hands of every loner malcontent and criminal across the globe. So on the face of it that doesn't seem to be such a good way to go. But perhaps if everyone had access to advanced AGI computational power in the way that most of us have access to desktop computers now - would that give the rest of society the computational power to keep the loner malcontents and crime syndicates in check?? Maybe the way to go is to make sure that AGI computational power is rapidly disseminated to a *medium-sized* initial circle of users - corporations, governments and civil society groups - so that none of the legitimate forces in society get a power advantage over the others and so the legitimate forces in society are widely empowered and can keep on top of the effects of the inadvertent (but inevitable) diffusion of AGI power to malcontents and criminals. If super advanced AGI power emerges under the control of one or a few powerful governments then I think power mongers will simply work to make sure they can control the government and hence the AGI power (as they have worked to control the military industrial complexes of the most powerful nations). If AGI power emerges as a purely commercial proposition then I think civil society will be priced out of the market and the power balance in society will be seriously disturbed in the direction of further concentration of power favouring either corporations and or governments. Cheers, Philip --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [agi] Open AGI?
Shane wrote: I see that you run sort of an intermediate approach here, as does Pei. Peter takes a more closed approach with A2I2, which probably reflects his background in business rather than academia. Others like James Rogers take a very closed approach; in fact I don't think I have ever seen a document describing what he is working on? If there are more closed projects out there well we probably wouldn't even hear about them in that case ;-) A big part of it, for me at least, is that I would rather be working on implementation details than writing up documents in the excruciating detail required to really make a bulletproof presentation. I have limited time, and writing about things for public consumption (rather than doing things) does not help me actually accomplish anything -- I don't need PR. Much better to have a killer demo, as Eugen would say. So I bite my tongue and make sure everything is polished, the systems are experienced, and any demo will be indisputably killer. That said, I've kind of promised to several people that I would publish a document tree by the end of the first half of this year that starts to cover the technologies in detail, as well as some papers on some interesting tangential theory stuff that has little to do with AGI. Not enough to duplicate the implementation, but enough to make the underlying theory relatively transparent. Probably right after we're officially moved to Palo Alto. Links will be posted when it actually goes up; the majority of it hasn't been written yet. j. andrew rogers --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [agi] Open AGI?
Hi Bill Being in your position (namely age wise), I would agree open source is the way to go particularly if someone could put together some lucid requirements, objectives and some substantial key seed ideas and/or models to get the ball rolling. Gus -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bill Hibbard Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 10:26 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [agi] Open AGI? I understand that you are not specifically talking about open source, but as the auther of several open source visualization systems (including Vis5D, which was probably the first open source visualization system) I want to point out that there is a real opportunity for someone who starts an open source AGI project. When you provide a good open source system, all kinds of smart people you never heard of send you valuable new functions to add to your software, as well as subjecting your system to much more exhaustive testing than you could (and often sending you bug fixes). Unless you are rich, you can't hire the kind of talent that volunteers to help. I don't know of any current open source AGI project, so there may be the opportunity for someone to create the first. Or is there already one that I'm not aware of? Of course, you have to create a good system (and one that encourages others to dig in and add pieces) in order to create a strong community of programmers around it. You could be the Linus Torvalds of AGI. If I were working on an AGI systems (I'm not, since I'm about to turn 56, about to retire, and currently enjoying a breather from coding my butt off for the past 35 years) I'd definitely see creating the first open source AGI system as a big opportunity. Cheers, Bill -- Bill Hibbard, SSEC, 1225 W. Dayton St., Madison, WI 53706 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 608-263-4427 fax: 608-263-6738 http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/vis.html --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
