Re: [agi] AGI open source license
--- Philip Goetz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 9/1/06, Stephen Reed [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Rather than cash payments I have in mind a scheme similar to the pre-world wide web bulletin board system in which FTP sites had upload and download ratios. If you wished to benefit from the site by downloading, you had to maintain a certain level of contributions via file uploads. Analogously, if one seeks to benefit from using a freely available internet-based distributed AGI, then one should contribute to it, either by donating some compute cycles, or by spending some time to tutor it. Cheers. -Steve Software distributed under those terms would be almost completely inaccessible, and unused. Imagine if Linux, or Emacs, or SSH, or any of the hundreds of open-source programs you use were distributed that way - you probably wouldn't be able to have gotten more than one or two of them. OK, perhaps my example will not easily extend to the usage model for an AI downloadable software. Maybe then the behavior of the system can be curious, and persuade, rather than compel, a fraction of the users to contribute their knowledge back into the system. -Steve __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
On 9/4/06, Charles D Hixson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Philip Goetz wrote: It is a good idea, for these reasons: 1. The money would be paid to the people who wrote the software. Under the GPL model you're promoting, the authors get nothing. The GPL does not prohibit you from selling software. It merely prohibits you from prohibiting others from selling copies of their copy at any price they choose. I already addressed this, and you are responding again with the same statement that I was resonding to. My point is that I want a license that requires anyone distributing the open-source software to pay the AUTHORS of the open-source software. The GPL makes no provision for this. 2. The GPL is unworkable. It requires that the commercial code also be released under GPL, and that the source code to everything added is released. It also requires the company to relinquish patent rights to anything in the code. This is a complete non-starter. The GPL is currently successful. Few companies are successful with their main product under the GPL license...though MySQL comes to mind, and I believe that SleepyCat is even successful distributing source code under the BSD license. Examining actual cases proves your assertions incorrect. Those companies don't make money off the software. They sell products and services. The GPL is not successful at enabling people to make money directly off software. This is critical, because it takes a large company and a large capital investment to make money selling products and services. This business model is useless to people like us, who need a way to hack out some code and make money off the code. --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
Philip Goetz wrote: ... Those companies don't make money off the software. They sell products and services. The GPL is not successful at enabling people to make money directly off software. This is critical, because it takes a large company and a large capital investment to make money selling products and services. This business model is useless to people like us, who need a way to hack out some code and make money off the code. You are right. And I can understand why in such a case the GPL might not be the right license for you to use. OTOH, if your license precludes my using your software in a GPL program, then it precludes me from using it. There are tradeoffs everywhere. Your choices are yours, and appear to be for valid to you reasons (rather than due to some misunderstanding). --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
On 8/30/06, Charles D Hixson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... some snipping ... - Phil The idea with the GPL is that if you want to also sell the program commercially, you should additionally make it available under an alternate license. Some companies have been successful in this mode. (Trolltech comes to mind, and also, I believe, MySQL.) Descendants of the GPL code are required to be GPL. No restrictions are placed as to what additional licenses you might offer code for sale under that you have also offered as GPL, except for What can I get people to buy?. Commonly this is used to allow those who don't wish to agree to the terms of the GPL to purchase the right to use the code under other terms. Stipulating fees as a part of the license is probably a bad idea. Why is it a bad idea? You said it was a bad idea, but you didn't say why. Also, the assertion that no restrictions are placed as to what additional licenses you might offer code for sale under is wrong; you are expressly forbidden from adding additional restrictions. I can't parse the sentence saying that this is to allow those who don't wish to agree to the terms of the GPL to purchase the right to use the code under other terms - it seems to be saying that it is legal to distribute GPLed code in a non-GPL way, which it isn't. It is a good idea, for these reasons: 1. The money would be paid to the people who wrote the software. Under the GPL model you're promoting, the authors get nothing. 2. The GPL is unworkable. It requires that the commercial code also be released under GPL, and that the source code to everything added is released. It also requires the company to relinquish patent rights to anything in the code. This is a complete non-starter. --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
On 9/1/06, Stephen Reed [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Rather than cash payments I have in mind a scheme similar to the pre-world wide web bulletin board system in which FTP sites had upload and download ratios. If you wished to benefit from the site by downloading, you had to maintain a certain level of contributions via file uploads. Analogously, if one seeks to benefit from using a freely available internet-based distributed AGI, then one should contribute to it, either by donating some compute cycles, or by spending some time to tutor it. Cheers. -Steve Software distributed under those terms would be almost completely inaccessible, and unused. Imagine if Linux, or Emacs, or SSH, or any of the hundreds of open-source programs you use were distributed that way - you probably wouldn't be able to have gotten more than one or two of them. --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
Philip Goetz wrote: On 8/30/06, Charles D Hixson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... some snipping ... - Phil The idea with the GPL is that if you want to also sell the program commercially, you should additionally make it available under an alternate license. Some companies have been successful in this mode. (Trolltech comes to mind, and also, I believe, MySQL.) Descendants of the GPL code are required to be GPL. No restrictions are placed as to what additional licenses you might offer code for sale under that you have also offered as GPL, except for What can I get people to buy?. Commonly this is used to allow those who don't wish to agree to the terms of the GPL to purchase the right to use the code under other terms. Stipulating fees as a part of the license is probably a bad idea. Why is it a bad idea? You said it was a bad idea, but you didn't say why. It's a bad idea because licenses are relatively permanent, and prices fluctuate. This is especially true if foreign currencies become involved, but it's true over time anyway. Also, the assertion that no restrictions are placed as to what additional licenses you might offer code for sale under is wrong; you are expressly forbidden from adding additional restrictions. I can't If you own the copyright to some material, you can sell it to different people under different licenses. (Note that this requires that you own the copyrights. Not just some of them, but all of them. This is one reason this approach is infrequent.) parse the sentence saying that this is to allow those who don't wish to agree to the terms of the GPL to purchase the right to use the code under other terms - it seems to be saying that it is legal to distribute GPLed code in a non-GPL way, which it isn't. You can't distribute the GPL'd copy under non-GPL terms, but if you also bought a different license (say from TrollTech), that license might well permit you to, e.g., distribute binary only copies of a modified original. This would not be under the GPL at all. The GPL prohibits this, so you need to purchase a separate license. Actually, Trolltech requires that you do your development FROM SCRATCH under the non GPL license. It is a good idea, for these reasons: 1. The money would be paid to the people who wrote the software. Under the GPL model you're promoting, the authors get nothing. The GPL does not prohibit you from selling software. It merely prohibits you from prohibiting others from selling copies of their copy at any price they choose. 2. The GPL is unworkable. It requires that the commercial code also be released under GPL, and that the source code to everything added is released. It also requires the company to relinquish patent rights to anything in the code. This is a complete non-starter. The GPL is currently successful. Few companies are successful with their main product under the GPL license...though MySQL comes to mind, and I believe that SleepyCat is even successful distributing source code under the BSD license. Examining actual cases proves your assertions incorrect. ... --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
Isupport opensource AGIwith the following reasons: 1. It would be nearly impossible to enforcethe single-AGI scenario; I think the best strategy is to start aproject and tryour best in it. 2. One possibilityis to make the AGI software commercial, but at a very low cost, and with differential pricing for individuals vs commercial, developing vs developedcountries, etc. 3. Profits could be re-distributed among researchers / programmers, and for solving social problems associated with AI. In this sense the GPL may be inappropriate because it forces the software to be freely distributable. 4. The 'safety' issue would be resolved by nations deciding that AI warfareis disastrous for the human race and thus avoiding using it for aggressive purposes. Powerful nations may build military AIs but the balance of power would prevent them from being used. 5. As for how to distributeincome toauthors, simplymeasuring compressed lines of code would be problematic because it ignores architectures and design of algorithms, plus a lot of other things that do not manifest in coding. IMO in a fairer world we should reward as many people as possible who have any direct or indirect contribution towards the AGI. I think an internal (or even external) voting system coupled with compressed-lines-of-code maybe more reasonable. YKY To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
Thanks YKY for your response! --- YKY (Yan King Yin) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I support opensource AGI with the following reasons: 1. It would be nearly impossible to enforce the single-AGI scenario; I think the best strategy is to start a project and try our best in it. Regardless, I will try to structure my project so that there are strong benefits from federation. 2. One possibility is to make the AGI software commercial, but at a very low cost, and with differential pricing for individuals vs commercial, developing vs developed countries, etc. 3. Profits could be re-distributed among researchers / programmers, and for solving social problems associated with AI. In this sense the GPL may be inappropriate because it forces the software to be freely distributable. Richard Stallman's point, repeated recently at a Free Software Foundation event in India, is that there is a class of developers who do not need a salary. And if an AGI open source project shows promise he supposes that various enterprises will pay some employees to contribute. 4. The 'safety' issue would be resolved by nations deciding that AI warfare is disastrous for the human race and thus avoiding using it for aggressive purposes. Powerful nations may build military AIs but the balance of power would prevent them from being used. I agree with this and other comments here that state that the open source license should not try to constrain usage, rather that's for the surrounding legal structure to ultimately deal with. 5. As for how to distribute income to authors, simply measuring compressed lines of code would be problematic because it ignores architectures and design of algorithms, plus a lot of other things that do not manifest in coding. IMO in a fairer world we should reward as many people as possible who have any direct or indirect contribution towards the AGI. I think an internal (or even external) voting system coupled with compressed-lines-of-code may be more reasonable. Rather than cash payments I have in mind a scheme similar to the pre-world wide web bulletin board system in which FTP sites had upload and download ratios. If you wished to benefit from the site by downloading, you had to maintain a certain level of contributions via file uploads. Analogously, if one seeks to benefit from using a freely available internet-based distributed AGI, then one should contribute to it, either by donating some compute cycles, or by spending some time to tutor it. Cheers. -Steve __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
Stephen Reed wrote: ... Rather than cash payments I have in mind a scheme similar to the pre-world wide web bulletin board system in which FTP sites had upload and download ratios. If you wished to benefit from the site by downloading, you had to maintain a certain level of contributions via file uploads. Analogously, if one seeks to benefit from using a freely available internet-based distributed AGI, then one should contribute to it, either by donating some compute cycles, or by spending some time to tutor it. Cheers. -Steve But please don't block out people behind a NAT firewall. I can't fairly download via bittorrent because it won't upload through NAT. --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
--- Charles D Hixson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Stephen Reed wrote: ... Rather than cash payments I have in mind a scheme similar to the pre-world wide web bulletin board system in which FTP sites had upload and download ratios. If you wished to benefit from the site by downloading, you had to maintain a certain level of contributions via file uploads. Analogously, if one seeks to benefit from using a freely available internet-based distributed AGI, then one should contribute to it, either by donating some compute cycles, or by spending some time to tutor it. Cheers. -Steve But please don't block out people behind a NAT firewall. I can't fairly download via bittorrent because it won't upload through NAT. Sorry, I mentioned upload/download ratios as an analogy, not literally the same manner of operation. What I plan is at first a chat based system, using firewall-friendly Jabber, which will attempt to covert human discourse into propositions, and use the same grammar for generating responses. This is currently an unsolved AI problem. My first iteration will be a system that seeks to intelligently improve its communication abilities via lexicon acquisition. Rather than solve the up-to-now unsolved problem, I will employ the pr oven technique of a controlled natural language, and guide the user to the sorts of sentences that the system can understand. So in this context I mean that the user does not actually upload any files, but rather the user should teach the system something in return for the system performing some action or activity on the user's behalf. Existing information-gathering projects such as OpenMind demonstrate the scalability of this approach. In contrast to the Cyc knowledge base which has a focus on commonsense facts and rules, my system will focus on recursive self-improvement, learning useful behavior in a friendly fashion. -Steve __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
On 8/28/06, Stephen Reed [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: An assumption that some may challenge is that AGI software should be free in the first place. I think that this approach has proved useful for both software (e.g. MySQL database) and knowledge (Wikipedia). Could additional terms and conditions for an AGI open source license retain these benefits yet be safe? I would rather see a license which made the software free for non-commercial use, but (unlike the GNU licenses) stipulated terms, and methods of deciding fees that would be binding on the software authors, so that a company could use the software for commercial uses, provided they paid the stipulated fees to the software authors. I know that most open-source advocates would scream bloody murder at this, but that's because people are guided by feelings rather than logic. Clearly there is no harm done to the intended beneficiaries of open-source, because they can still use the software free. The only change is that authors might get paid. This should greatly increase the effort put into open-source software. (As to those who say software should be free, I notice that the magazines and books promoting the meme that software should be free are not themselves free, although they could be distributed free over the web, and the act of writing software is little different from the act of writing text. Hey, I know, we should establish a centralized government to pay the authors of open-source software, and musicians, and writers, and, heck, everyone! From each according to their abilities... wait a minute, I think we tried that already.) Deciding how much to pay each author would be difficult, and the only workable systems would be unjust. However, an unjust system is better than no system at all, I think. An example of an unjust but workable system would be for each line of code or range of code to have an author's name attached to it in a comment; for the company to choose those lines of code they wish to use; for them to use grep to sort all the lines of code in the project into separate files by author; and then to gzip the file for each author, and split the payment among authors in proportion to the compressed filesize of their contributions. The company might be able to choose between paying a flat fee, or a per-license fee. Remember that some of these companies might be a guy in an apartment trying something out with no money, who would need to operate on a per-license fee. Since flat fees in general favor large companies, I would stick with the license fee if people feel we need to pick one. Remembering that these AI applications could be web services, we would also need a per-use fee, so that a user can't buy one license for his servelet and let the whole world use it. We should also not require people to relinquish patent rights on any concepts they use in the open-source code. They need only allow that patent to be used in that code, with no restrictions on its use in that code or in further versions of that code. An assumption of mine that can be debated perhaps in a separate message thread, is that there should be effectively only one AGI, allowing for a federation of AGI's contrived to prevent war between them. The balance-of-power issue is a good point to make; I made some similar remarks at the AGIRI conference. Governance of a open source distributed AGI, with users who could be citizens of enemy countries, is an issue that might be addressed by license terms and conditions - any thoughts? Citizens of such countries probably aren't going to pay attention to any license terms you make, anyway. (Not to mention some friendly countries I could name.) - Phil --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
MAGIC (was Re: [agi] AGI open source license)
Wilbur Peng I developed a set of standards for AGI components, called MAGIC, that was intended to form the foundation of an open-source AGI effort. Unfortunately, the company decided not to make MAGIC open-source, rather losing sight of the entire purpose of the project. I can describe MAGIC, but it would be risky for me to develop something similar open-source. It makes a few fundamental assumptions: - the programs will be written in a modular fashion - the programs will be agent-based, meaning - many modules have their own threads - communication between these modules happens only by message-passing, never by procedure call - there are provisions for procedure calls to library functions, as long as restrictions related to permissions and co-location on the same machine are observed - every component will be annotated using XML to describe what it does and what assumptions it makes, as well as what messages it sends and accepts (more specifically, what protocols it adheres to, where protocols are re-useable objects that describe the messages every agent in a protocol can send and receive) --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
Philip Goetz wrote: On 8/28/06, Stephen Reed [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: An assumption that some may challenge is that AGI s... source license retain these benefits yet be safe? I would rather see a license which made the software free for non-commercial use, but (unlike the GNU licenses) stipulated terms, and methods of deciding fees that would be binding on the software authors, so that a company could use the software for commercial uses, provided they paid the stipulated fees to the software authors. ... - Phil The idea with the GPL is that if you want to also sell the program commercially, you should additionally make it available under an alternate license. Some companies have been successful in this mode. (Trolltech comes to mind, and also, I believe, MySQL.) Descendants of the GPL code are required to be GPL. Descendants of code acquired under the alternate license can be whatever you choose. The limitation of this approach is that it is common for the GPL branch to out-develop the non-GPL branch...so you must develop quite actively. Also you must own the copyrights to all of the code that is used. You can't add pieces from other GPL projects. Etc. No restrictions are placed as to what additional licenses you might offer code for sale under that you have also offered as GPL, except for What can I get people to buy?. Commonly this is used to allow those who don't wish to agree to the terms of the GPL to purchase the right to use the code under other terms. Stipulating fees as a part of the license is probably a bad idea. --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
On 8/28/06, Stephen Reed [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: An assumption of mine that can be debated perhaps in aseparate message thread, is that there should beeffectively only one AGI, allowing for a federation ofAGI's contrived to prevent war between them. I've explained my opinion of the various AI conquer the world memes before, this probably isn't the thread for a repeat :) However, I think there might be something to be said for this idea for a completely different reason. OpenOffice works well under the GPL because of what it does: everyone puts their own little OpenOffice installation on their own PC and uses it for individual-scale tasks, and the GPL lets them do this. Google wouldn't work at all well under the GPL. Why? Because if everyone had their own little Google, it would be quite useless [1]. The system's usefulness comes from the fact that there is only one Google, and it is _big_, in terms of both knowledge and the computing resources to use that knowledge. A serious AGI will have to end up making Google look like those '10 PRINT HELLO: GOTO 10' programs we used to write on our childhood 8-bit computers. If everyone just downloads their own copy and tweaks it separately from everyone else's, the sum total of value generated will be effectively zero. Now, I don't think I'd have the license say you must donate CPU cycles in payment for using this both because I don't see any way to enforce it and because it would justifiably annoy people who want to e.g. play with it on a laptop without an Internet connection. What I would consider doing (haven't thought very much about this so far, might be flaws in the idea, but I think it's at least worth a look) if I were going to do open source AGI, is take an idea from GPL and say: You may do anything you like with this on your own PC, but you may not _distribute_ an incompatible version. Any modified version that gets distributed, must seamlessly hook into the network of other copies. [1] I know there are some companies that have licensed Google to catalog their intranet stuff, but this is small change by comparison, and even this doesn't apply to AGI because the latter's knowledge acquisition will be far less regular and at least for the foreseeable future far less fully automatable than Google's. To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
--- Russell Wallace [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A serious AGI will have to end up making Google look like those '10 PRINT HELLO: GOTO 10' programs we used to write on our childhood 8-bit computers. Agreed. If everyone just downloads their own copy and tweaks it separately from everyone else's, the sum total of value generated will be effectively zero. Yes, but suppose the government of China decides to download an open source AGI and install it on one or more of their Top 500 supercomputer facilities? Certain indivuals may have vast compute resources at their disposal. Now, I don't think I'd have the license say you must donate CPU cycles in payment for using this both because I don't see any way to enforce it and because it would justifiably annoy people who want to e.g. play with it on a laptop without an Internet connection. Let me elaborate: I am considering a primary deployment for my open source project using Jabber, an open source chat protocal adopted by Google Chat among others. Any user could just chat with the AGI. If they want the AGI to perform tasks for them on their own computer, then they would download some components and be subject to the constraints of the license. From public research soliciations I know that the US CIA is interested in AI to assist their intelligence analysts. If they were to download and intall an open source AGI they would permit policy control from the unclassified side, e.g. not violate US laws, but no information could come out of a classified software component back to the central, completely open AGI. What I would consider doing (haven't thought very much about this so far, might be flaws in the idea, but I think it's at least worth a look) if I were going to do open source AGI, is take an idea from GPL and say: You may do anything you like with this on your own PC, but you may not _distribute_ an incompatible version. Any modified version that gets distributed, must seamlessly hook into the network of other copies. Exactly, how to detect evil modifications is a safety issue. --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
On 8/28/06, Stephen Reed [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, but suppose the government of China decides todownload an open source AGI and install it on one ormore of their Top 500 supercomputer facilities? Suppose the government of China decide to get hold of CAD, simulation software etc and install it on their computers and use it for designing bombs and missiles? Well then they can do that, and indeed doubtless they have. Same answer. How do we regulate the use of computers for nefarious deeds today? Well mostly we don't, and when we try (e.g. the American government with cryptography), it doesn't work and the attempt does far more harm than good. What we do, by and large, is not bother - instead, we just outlaw the nefarious deeds themselves, regardless of the tools that were used. I think this will remain true in the future (or if it doesn't, we'll be in big trouble). That having been said, if you're serious about preventing the abuse of your software, I think the only answer is, don't distribute it. Follow the path of Novamente and indeed Google themselves (albeit for different reasons) and keep the software on your own machines and sell the services it provides. That might be a better route with regard to resources. It's not clear to me whether an open source AGI project relying on donated manpower and computing power could obtain enough of those. Then again, maybe it could; I don't really know either way. To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
On 8/28/06, Stephen Reed [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I assume that you fully understand the benefits andbusiness case of an open source project, and that yourpoint is made even with the former fully considered. Yes. For that matter, my answer would be the same if you proposed a closed source project that sold a binary distribution like Microsoft Office. I would respond to the proprietary AGI alternativewith the observation that one may suppose, as do I, that only one AGI is safer than many, possiblyopposing, AGIs.With the proprietary model, therewill be a market for others to enter.On the otherhand an established open source project precludescompetition, e.g. only one Wikipedia. I think safety is maximized by maximizing the probability of successful development of AGI within whatever time we have available rather than trying to minimize the probability that one or more AGIs will be abused, but that is a different question. If minimizing the probability that an AGI will be abused is your priority, the best approach might be to try to get there first and remain so far ahead of the competition as to have a near monopoly, as e.g. IBM did in the mainframe market in its heyday. To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
On 28/08/06, Russell Wallace [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 8/28/06, Stephen Reed [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Google wouldn't work at all well under the GPL. Why? Because if everyone had their own little Google, it would be quite useless [1]. The system's usefulness comes from the fact that there is only one Google, and it is _big_, in terms of both knowledge and the computing resources to use that knowledge. But google gets its knowledge from lots of little actors (web page makers). I suspect the thing that will replace google will get its information from lots of little AIs each attached to a person/government or other organisation. While AGI will likely be a google replacer, it will also be an outlook replacer as well. The micro scale and the macro. If the macro AGI can't translate between differences in language or representation that the micro AGIs have acquired from being open source, then we probably haven't done our job properly. Will Pearson --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
On 28/08/06, Russell Wallace [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 8/28/06, William Pearson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If the macro AGI can't translate between differences in language or representation that the micro AGIs have acquired from being open source, then we probably haven't done our job properly. But I don't think that will. I think that job is impossible to do, or rather that doing it would require a complete, fully-educated AGI - which is precisely what we are trying to achieve, so we can't rely on its existence while we are trying to build it. I was thinking more long term than you. I agree in the first phase we can't rely on it being to translate different information from different AGI. But to start with I wouldn't attempt the google killer, merely the outlook killer. We may well not have enough computing resources available to do it on the cheap using local resources. But that is the approach I am inclined to take, I'll just wait until we do. The open source distibuted google killer will have the problem of who decides what goals the system has/starts with (depending upon your philosophy), and how to upgrade the collective if the goals were incorrect to start with. It is also not as amenable to experiment as the micro level systems are. Will --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
On 8/28/06, William Pearson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was thinking more long term than you. I agree in the first phase wecan't rely on it being to translate different information fromdifferent AGI. But to start with I wouldn't attempt the google killer,merely the outlook killer. Okay, but... We may well not have enough computing resources available to do it onthe cheap using local resources. But that is the approach I am inclined to take, I'll just wait until we do. Computing power isn't the only issue, and probably not the most important one; what do you think an Outlook killer could do that Outlook doesn't already do, and how would it know how to do it?The open source distibuted google killer will have the problem of who decides whatgoals the system has/starts with (depending upon your philosophy) Do what the users want you to do. andhow to upgrade the collective if the goals were incorrect to startwith. In the case of an open source AGI project, there would be no requirement that all users form a collective as far as their goals are concerned, only that they agree on running, maintaining and enhancing the software to serve their separate goals, just as is the case with e.g. the Internet today. It is also not as amenable to experiment as the micro levelsystems are. True. To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
Hi Stephen, As a small operation independent of Cyc, distributing your AGI system as open source is likely to be a good strategy. As a small university PI developing visualization software, distributing my systems as open source turned out to be very good for my project. Our collaborators and customers came to us out of the blue, without any need for a marketing department we couldn't afford. There were very few negatives (we did have a developer in China who wanted me to pay them to get access to some enhanccements they had made, but I simply declined). In my first major system, Vis5D, there was a problem with divergent versions. We were able to work with developers to unify the most important versions, but it was hard work and there were still numerous divergent versions. For another major system, VisAD, I specifically designed it a high level of abstraction and with classes designed to be extended to allow developers to make low level changes, and so far there have not been divergent versions. I am a bit skeptical whether legal wording in the license will restrain developers from making divergent versions - as a small operation, are you really prepared to take violators to court? But if your design makes divergence less necesary, most developers will see the advantage of a unified version that permits sharing. By open source distribution you are expressing optimism about human nature, and your developer community will mostly justify that optimism. The best approach for the few who disappoint you is to simply ignore them. Good luck, Bill On Mon, 28 Aug 2006, Stephen Reed wrote: I would appreciate comments regarding additional constraints, if any, that should be applied to a traditional open source license to achieve a free but safe widespread distribution of software that may lead to AGI. As background, I was recently layed off by Cycorp, the creators of the Cyc knowledge base, and I am taking this opportunity to pursue my own AGI ideas full time. Although I am a ResearchCyc licensee I am considering a roadmap leading to a completely open source AGI. An assumption that some may challenge is that AGI software should be free in the first place. I think that this approach has proved useful for both software (e.g. MySQL database) and knowledge (Wikipedia). Could additional terms and conditions for an AGI open source license retain these benefits yet be safe? The leading GNU Public License forbids any further constraints beyond its own terms so lets think about the Apache Software License (ASL). http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html Here is a key clause: Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare Derivative Works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute the Work and such Derivative Works in Source or Object form. An assumption of mine that can be debated perhaps in a separate message thread, is that there should be effectively only one AGI, allowing for a federation of AGI's contrived to prevent war between them. A second assumption is that the existing legal structure, in particular license enforcement throughout the world, can handle an open source AGI. What about an AGI open source license, similar to the above ASL in which the user must, to comply with the license, federate their downloaded AGI with the existing AGI system and thus subordinate it to ethic, legal and safety controls previously established? Governance of a open source distributed AGI, with users who could be citizens of enemy countries, is an issue that might be addressed by license terms and conditions - any thoughts? Cheers. -Steve __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com --- 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] AGI open source license
On 8/28/06, Bill Hibbard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: By open source distribution you are expressing optimismabout human nature, and your developer community willmostly justify that optimism. The best approach for thefew who disappoint you is to simply ignore them. I agree. When I suggested a no incompatible versions clause in the license, I wasn't thinking in terms of then you can fight and win lots of court cases!; Linus Torvalds, Guido van Rossum et al haven't had to do that after all. I think that, as in the case of the GPL, most people would respect the terms of the license without having to be coerced; and I agree that the first line of defense against incompatible forking is to design the architecture such that incompatible forks aren't needed. (This is different from the question of what if [insert favorite bad guys] use it for nefarious purposes. I still think the only way to guarantee that doesn't happen is to never let any copies of the code out of your grasp.) To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
--- Russell Wallace [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 8/28/06, Bill Hibbard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: By open source distribution you are expressing optimism about human nature, and your developer community will mostly justify that optimism. The best approach for the few who disappoint you is to simply ignore them. I agree. When I suggested a no incompatible versions clause in the license, I wasn't thinking in terms of then you can fight and win lots of court cases!; Linus Torvalds, Guido van Rossum et al haven't had to do that after all. I think that, as in the case of the GPL, most people would respect the terms of the license without having to be coerced; and I agree that the first line of defense against incompatible forking is to design the architecture such that incompatible forks aren't needed. (This is different from the question of what if [insert favorite bad guys] use it for nefarious purposes. I still think the only way to guarantee that doesn't happen is to never let any copies of the code out of your grasp.) Thanks for the clarification. Now I see how to integrate your thinking with my own. -Steve __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
On 28/08/06, Russell Wallace [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 8/28/06, William Pearson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We may well not have enough computing resources available to do it on the cheap using local resources. But that is the approach I am inclined to take, I'll just wait until we do. Computing power isn't the only issue, and probably not the most important one; what do you think an Outlook killer could do that Outlook doesn't already do, and how would it know how to do it? Things like hooking it up to low quality sound video feeds and have it judge by posture/expression/time of day what the most useful piece of information in the RSS feeds/email etc to provide to the user is. We would have to program a large amounts of the behaviour to start with, but also by the dynamics and mechanism we create it would get more of an information about what the individual user wanted. The open source distibuted google killer will have the problem of who decides what goals the system has/starts with (depending upon your philosophy) Do what the users want you to do. Hmm. Possibly what we are talking about is not so different. and how to upgrade the collective if the goals were incorrect to start with. In the case of an open source AGI project, there would be no requirement that all users form a collective as far as their goals are concerned, only that they agree on running, maintaining and enhancing the software to serve their separate goals, just as is the case with e.g. the Internet today. Wouldn't interoperability be maintained by the same sort of pressures that mean that everyones tweaked version of Open Office shares the same file formats? The fact that the first mover that is incompatible loses then benefits from remaining compatible? Will --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
On 8/28/06, William Pearson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Things like hooking it up to low quality sound video feeds and have itjudge by posture/_expression_/time of day what the most useful piece ofinformation in the RSS feeds/email etc to provide to the user is. Wewould have to program a large amounts of the behaviour to start with, but also by the dynamics and mechanism we create it would get more ofan information about what the individual user wanted. Hmm... okay... it's not obvious to me that would be useful, but maybe it would. The nice thing about being a pessimist, one's surprises are more likely to be pleasant ones. Surprise me ^.^ Wouldn't interoperability be maintained by the same sort of pressuresthat mean that everyones tweaked version of Open Office shares the same file formats? The fact that the first mover that is incompatibleloses then benefits from remaining compatible? Yes, I would rely primarily on such incentives to maintain compatibility. To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
On 28/08/06, Russell Wallace [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 8/28/06, William Pearson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Things like hooking it up to low quality sound video feeds and have it judge by posture/expression/time of day what the most useful piece of information in the RSS feeds/email etc to provide to the user is. We would have to program a large amounts of the behaviour to start with, but also by the dynamics and mechanism we create it would get more of an information about what the individual user wanted. Hmm... okay... it's not obvious to me that would be useful, but maybe it would. The nice thing about being a pessimist, one's surprises are more likely to be pleasant ones. Surprise me ^.^ Possibly I am not explaining things clearly enough. One of my motivations for developing AI, apart from the challenge, is to enable me to get the information I need, when I need it. As a lot of the power I have in this world is through what I buy, I need to have this information available when I might buy something, which may be when I am in social situations etc. I can be a lot better ethical consumer with the the details I need at the right time given to me. As such I am interested in wearable and ubiquitous computing. Due to the constraints wearable computer place upon the designer, you really want the correct information given to you and nothing else that may distract the user unnecessarily. Knowing what the correct information is will entail knowing about the user and the uses current environment. Whether they rate energy efficiency or CO2 emissions as a priority, for example. It will also entail the google like system you are focused upon. I also think that a system designed to understand our body language/gestures/moods will also be able to be more easily and naturally trained as it has more information coming in about what we want and we will not have to be so explicit in our instructions. I'm also a pessimist in that I don't think an era of light will entail just because AI is invented, but I hope it will allow the few people that care to close the information gap that exists between producers and consumers. Or the government and the populace for that matter. And provide an economy marginally closer to what is promised by free market theory. You have hinted at the normative value of AI, I'm curious what you find it to be? Is it simply to speed up technological development so that we can escape the gravity well? Will Will --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
On 8/28/06, William Pearson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Possibly I am not explaining things clearly enough. One of mymotivations for developing AI, apart from the challenge, is to enableme to get the information I need, when I need it.As a lot of the power I have in this world is through what I buy, I need to have this information available when I might buy something,which may be when I am in social situations etc. I can be a lot betterethical consumer with the the details I need at the right time given to me. As such I am interested in wearable and ubiquitous computing.Due to the constraints wearable computer place upon the designer, youreally want the correct information given to you and nothing else thatmay distract the user unnecessarily. Ah, so you see this on a wearable... okay... that makes a bit more sense, and also of what you said earlier about computing power, since wearables are much more constrained in that regard than desktops. Knowing what the correct information is will entail knowing about theuser and the uses current environment. Whether they rate energy efficiency or CO2 emissions as a priority, for example. It will alsoentail the google like system you are focused upon. I should clarify: I think competing with Google in the search market is a losing proposition, that's already wrapped up; I'd look for new markets that nobody is serving well today. I use it only as an example of a software system that needs a lot of knowledge and computing power and is therefore run on a central rather than local basis. You have hinted at the normative value of AI, I'm curious what youfind it to be? Is it simply to speed up technological development so that we can escape the gravity well? Break the boundaries of space and time that currently apply to human life. Specifically: 1) Escape the gravity well. Or more precisely, we can already do that, but we can't live anywhere other than Earth, because the number of tasks that need to be carried out to keep a person alive for a year vastly exceeds the number of things a person can do in a year. Cracking that complexity barrier needs qualitative technological advances. 2) Stop or at least slow down the loss of fifty-plus million lives per year. That's a matter both of developing the hardware tools to work proficiently at the molecular level (i.e. some form of nanotechnology) and again the software tools to handle the complexity. To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
I would like to hear from others with this same point of view, and otherwise from anyone who has a idea that an open source AGI could be somehow made safe. While I also don't believe that you can protect your open source AGI from what if [insert favorite bad guys] use it for nefarious purposes, I'm of the opinion that the delta of how much they would benefit from it is far less than the delta that the good guys would benefit from it. Or, in other words, I suspect that it is far more likely that the [favorite bad guys] are going to have the funding and fortitude to get to AGI first while working alone than it is that the good guys can get to it first working alone. Also, in either case, open source will hasten AGI -- but less detrimentally if the bad guys get it first (vs. very beneficially if the good guys get it) -- since I also believe that earlier is also likely to be less detrimental even if the bad guys DO get it (for a whole slew of reasons including the beliefs that we are more likely to survive an early unfriendly AI than a later unfriendly AI, that there are threats that a biased read not friendly but not totally unfriendly AI will stop that could obliterate us otherwise, and that any sufficiently advanced AGI will go friendly given enough time). On the whole, I'm in favor of open-sourcing AGI with some precautions despite full knowledge that *no* precautions (including making something proprietary) will stop a sufficiently determined and reasonably knowledgeable bad guy (look at all the zero-day exploits coming out right on the heels of proprietary vendor patches). Mark - Original Message - From: Stephen Reed [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: agi@v2.listbox.com Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 11:20 AM Subject: Re: [agi] AGI open source license --- Russell Wallace [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That having been said, if you're serious about preventing the abuse of your software, I think the only answer is, don't distribute it. Follow the path of Novamente and indeed Google themselves (albeit for different reasons) and keep the software on your own machines and sell the services it provides. I assume that you fully understand the benefits and business case of an open source project, and that your point is made even with the former fully considered. I would like to hear from others with this same point of view, and otherwise from anyone who has a idea that an open source AGI could be somehow made safe. I would respond to the proprietary AGI alternative with the observation that one may suppose, as do I, that only one AGI is safer than many, possibly opposing, AGIs. With the proprietary model, there will be a market for others to enter. On the other hand an established open source project precludes competition, e.g. only one Wikipedia. --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com --- 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] AGI open source license
Stephen Reed wrote: I would appreciate comments regarding additional constraints, if any, that should be applied to a traditional open source license to achieve a free but safe widespread distribution of software that may lead to AGI. ... My personal opinion is that the best license is the GPL. Either version 2 or 3...currently I can't choose between them (partially because version 3 is still being written). Note that may large GPL projects are quite successful. Consider, e.g., gcc. The claim that because anyone CAN change the code, anyone WILL change the code is probably fallacious. Most of those who try find that their changes are less than good. Usually those who decide to create a fork find themselves being left behind by the pace of development. So generally everyone sticks with the main tree...and perhaps submits changes that they think desirable into the project. Occasionally a fork will be successful. (X Window is no longer being developed from the XFree86 tree, e.g.) But since the license is GPL, this doesn't make any difference. How do you keep the bad guys from using it? You keep on developing. Those who fork tend to fall behind, unless they get community support. Now I'll admit that this is an idealized picture of the development process, but the outline is correct. Keeping a project going takes a good manager...one who can herd cats. It requires inspiring a degree of faith and trust in people who will be working without being paid. This means you've got to inspire them as well as get them to trust you. And you've got to articulate a vision of where the project should be headed next, roadmap is the common term, without stifling creativity. P.S.: Note that gcc has several chunks. Each language has a largely separate implementation, but each needs to generate the same kind of intermediate representation. This allows several essentially independent teams to each work separately. As to just *how* independent... consider the gdc compiler ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/dgcc ). This project is prevented by licensing constraints from having ANY direct connection to the rest of gcc. Yet it can still be integrated into gcc by an end user. --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [agi] AGI open source license
--- Charles D Hixson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Stephen Reed wrote: I would appreciate comments regarding additional constraints, if any, that should be applied to a traditional open source license to achieve a free but safe widespread distribution of software that may lead to AGI. ... My personal opinion is that the best license is the GPL. Either version 2 or 3...currently I can't choose between them (partially because version 3 is still being written). [snip] How do you keep the bad guys from using it? You keep on developing. Those who fork tend to fall behind, unless they get community support. As a long time gcc tool chain user I agree with the comments below but let me draw a distinction between an AGI and all software that precedes it. I think that an AGI might be dangerous, especially an uncontrolled AGI. I wish to impose well-founded ethical and law-abiding policies on the various downloaded AI softwares. There are already laws and enforcement world wide that constrains most bad guys, but there is little precedent outside of robotics, numerical control and embedded, e.g. medical software for building in safety as part and parcel of the software. That puts me at odds with the GPL which forbids any additional constraints in derivations of its license. The Apache Software License can be further constrained in derived works, e.g. adding a must-be-federated clause. A let's cross that bridge when we come to it attitude might be to open source the pre-AI software, developing action justification, Friendship goal structure, proscribed behaviors, policy hierarchies, self-improvement monitoring and so forth without usage constrictions. As you point out, this will ease adoption and the great majority of downloaders will choose to operate in federated mode, out of self-interest. Should evidence arise that an AGI could indeed evolve, then alarmists and skeptics will arise, a hoopla will ensue, and behavior constraints will be externally imposed. Now I'll admit that this is an idealized picture of the development process, but the outline is correct. Keeping a project going takes a good manager...one who can herd cats. It requires inspiring a degree of faith and trust in people who will be working without being paid. This means you've got to inspire them as well as get them to trust you. And you've got to articulate a vision of where the project should be headed next, roadmap is the common term, without stifling creativity. P.S.: Note that gcc has several chunks. Each language has a largely separate implementation, but each needs to generate the same kind of intermediate representation. This allows several essentially independent teams to each work separately. As to just *how* independent... consider the gdc compiler ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/dgcc ). This project is prevented by licensing constraints from having ANY direct connection to the rest of gcc. Yet it can still be integrated into gcc by an end user. --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com --- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
