Active AGI and/or FAI researchers
post by hankx7787 · 2012-01-07T03:08:46.687Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 14 commentsContents
14 comments
I am curious in general about who here, if anyone, is actively researching the AGI and/or FAI problems directly in a full-time capacity (or soon will be). So if that's you, please say hello! Or if you know another website/mailing-list/etc this question would be more appropriate to ask, please let me know.
If you are interested in saying more about who you are and what you're doing, I've included some additional questions below. Feel free to provide as much or as little information as you'd like - but the more the better!
- Are you working for a particular organization or a known AGI project? If so, which? Link? If not, are you working on these issues independently, or can you otherwise explain your situation?
- What is your overall theory/philosophy on FAI/AGI? How are you similar to and how are you different from Eliezer Yudkowsky in this respect?
- What has been your overall approach to study for this line of research / what specific curriculum and what specific books/papers/etc would you recommend? I would be interested in as much detail as you can provide here.
- Do you have any published material (even informal/in-progress information, documentation, discussion, blogs, etc)? Links?
- What are you working on now and what's coming next in your work? Are you solving some interesting problem, creating some interesting new idea, bringing together a grand theory, actually building a working FAI/AGI or similar, or approaching some big milestone along any of these paths or others? What do your plans and timeline for the future look like?
14 comments
Comments sorted by top scores.
comment by Stuart_Armstrong · 2012-01-07T10:11:16.277Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Currently working for the FHI, mainly on FAI-like problems. Got a paper coming out soon on Oracle AI (http://www.aleph.se/papers/oracleAI.pdf)
comment by Vladimir_Nesov · 2012-01-07T15:39:56.288Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
You won't get a lot of responses if you ask people to name themselves.
Replies from: Stuart_Armstrong↑ comment by Stuart_Armstrong · 2012-01-07T17:49:27.891Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Why, btw?
Replies from: Vladimir_Nesov↑ comment by Vladimir_Nesov · 2012-01-07T18:13:23.075Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Because all else equal, announcing that you're doing something impressive feels like a (small) status hit, so if nothing else moves people to overcome this trivial inconvenience (for example, recognizing that it actually isn't a status hit, or that the default behavior in a given context is to respond rather than stay silent, or if someone personally asked you), nothing gets done.
Replies from: MixedNuts, Stuart_Armstrong↑ comment by MixedNuts · 2012-01-07T18:22:25.726Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
announcing that you're doing something impressive feels like a (small) status hit
Something isn't right here. Do you mean it feels like a status grab - a status hit to others, avoided out of politeness? Or that people who do extremely impressive (as opposed to moderately impressive ones) things shouldn't need to announce it, so "I'm saving the world" is a status loss but "I'm learning Swahili" is a status gain?
Replies from: Kaj_Sotala, Vladimir_Nesov↑ comment by Kaj_Sotala · 2012-01-07T20:26:02.454Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I interpreted this as meaning that needing to nominate yourself implies that nobody else cares enough about your work to name you as an example, meaning that you're not actually that important.
Replies from: Stuart_Armstrong↑ comment by Stuart_Armstrong · 2012-01-07T23:52:31.352Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Convoluted. But do you feel it's plausible?
Replies from: Kaj_Sotala↑ comment by Kaj_Sotala · 2012-01-08T07:57:12.054Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I know I've felt that way every now and then, though on those occasions the reason has also been clear to me. I'm not sure if it's equally plausible for someone to feel that way and not realize the logic behind it.
↑ comment by Vladimir_Nesov · 2012-01-07T18:55:23.511Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Something isn't right here. Do you mean it feels like a status grab - a status hit to others, avoided out of politeness?
Politeness is about covert/deniable transactions in status-related attributes, so it's a curiosity stopper in this context, not an explanation. It probably feels like a status hit because it's expected (perhaps incorrectly) to feel like a status grab to others. What you feel isn't generally a reason for responding a certain way, instead it's a means: something external should be a reason, whose detection might be represented as a feeling, in turn triggering a behavior.
↑ comment by Stuart_Armstrong · 2012-01-07T19:00:19.161Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Then it's lucky I don't overthink these things.
And your story sounds plausible, but the opposite would sound equally plausible to me.
Replies from: Vladimir_Nesov↑ comment by Vladimir_Nesov · 2012-01-07T21:27:40.633Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Then it's lucky I don't overthink these things.
I was characterizing an emotional response, not reasoning. There doesn't seem to be a clear argument for that response being correct in this case.