Singularity Weblog
http://www.singularityweblog.com/peter-voss/
Peter Voss is an entrepreneur, inventor, engineer, scientist and AI researcher. He is a rather interesting and unique individual not only because of his diverse background and impressive accomplishments but also because of his interest in moral philosophy and artificial intelligence. I have been planning to interview Voss for a while and, given how quickly our discussion went by, I will do my best to bring him again to Singularity 1 on 1.
During our 1-hour-long conversation with Peter we cover a variety of topics such as: his excitement in pursuing a dream that others have failed to accomplish for the past 50 years; whether we are rational or irrational animals; utility curves and the motivation of AGI; the importance of philosophy and ethics; Bertrand Russel and Ayn Rand; his companies A2I2 and Smart Action; his [revised] optimism and timeline for building AGI; the Turing Test and the importance of asking questions; Our Final Invention and friendly AI; intelligence and morality…
Source
Thanks again for the upload!
When it comes to what is most fascinating about future technologies, it is not only radical life extension that is important, but radical intelligence extension which will also be very important! Radical life extension gives us more ability to experience the qualities of life, while radical intelligence extension gives us a stronger reason to want radical life extension.
Humans are not fully rational; we only have a capacity for reason; and we each have varying degrees of access to the capacity. As Peter says, much of our mental and physical functioning is automated and non-rational…has to be for us to live.
Reason is not inherently ethical or 'rational'. An immense quantity of cooperative human reason is being applied systematically to greed and destruction in myriad ways, suchs as Wall St and the military industrial complex.
Like all tools or instruments reason is a double edged sword. A fully rational humanity would use reason quite differently than we do today.
i dont know what world peter lives in- witness collapse of the financial structure in e/u usa perpetuated by greed and criminality. the deconstruction of bill of rights i have live in a mental world of there own creation, its called maya.
One interesting aspect that I noticed is that all people involved in AI especially the older ones try to extend their life as much as possible.
Meaning that they can see a way to achieve general AI in a not to distant future.
I'm also an electrical engineer and write software especially complex automation or narrow AI
In the past I had contemplating working on general AI it was my dream as a teen but I decided to let others do that and just wait comfortable while living my life 🙂
But I may decide to start working on AI if I see that there is not enough effort put in to this.
I do think that general AI will be born soon even if is not our goal just by the progress of narrow AI and always improving hardware.
What a great interview!!
What a great interview!!
"Having more intelligence will be good for mankind!" – there is a much easier, cheaper and more prominent way of achieving that. Strive to educate hundreds of millions of people around the world not having even basic school education.
Lost 6 years in development, gained 6 years in technology.
Thank you for great interview Nikola. Your work adds ALOT of additional intelligence into the word and you are the part of the reasons why this world is getting better.
Great stuff as always!
Great interview.
I really liked the second half.
Would love to see a part 2 where you debate/discuss the positions alluded to.
(Or if you record your get together, I wouldn't mind longer video 4-5hours)
Thanks !
The most important topic for our time…..and only a handful of people are listening. Trans-humans walk amongst us………man's flaw will programmed into any software. Thus destroying your view and theories on AI.
I wish you would have asked Voss about his opinion regarding the technological singularity. Also, how his approach to creating an AGI differs from others such as Ben Goertzel. Although I enjoyed the interview overall, it would have been better if you debated with him less and asked more questions instead.
I think he means that reaching advanced technologies without becoming Moral and rational enough is really dangerous which is right,But we can't just become advanced rational humans without making mistakes, that's inevitable.we have to walk the path of evolution and our stupidity to learn from our mistakes.like Hiroshima! we reached the technology before we become rational and moral enough to deserve that technology, we used it… but after that we learned how stupid is the idea to use such technology against Mankind.now we are using the same technology in Voyager spacecrafts to explore the space.I think he is right and wrong!
Hi. I think that Aristotle said that we are Political animals, not social.
Could it be that something was lost in translation? I am saying that because I am Greek.
you're becoming boring nikola. why do you argue with him? nobody wants to hear your opinion on philosophy, communism, etc. with each interview you're getting worse…
Dear Peter, do you subscribe to Ray Kurzweil's "How to Create a Mind" and Jeff Hawkins' "On Intelligence" as far as "hierarchical temporal memory," or "the pattern recognition theory of the mind."
@49:00 an obvious counter-argument to the benevolent opposition to the Iraq war situation, the AGI sees the same benefit from going to Iraq that Halliburton and Blackwater saw: "more toys (resources) for itself." or "more resources for the company that created me." Without mirror neurons and a sense of "suffering" (many patterns that model suffering).
Also, not everything is getting better –sociopath dominated systems are actually getting worse. Hence the rise of the militarization of police (Balko) and the rise of the prison population per capita (Eric Schlosser's 1998 Atlantic article "The Prison Industrial Complex").
Fantastic interview! Love the topic of grand challenges and solution oriented people who are out their making it happen. Too much learned helplessness out their right now. Embracing optimism is very important, it's time to change our minds to switch our paradigm.
The first place where AI is installed would be killing machines.
soldier robots and drones and second Zugangskontrolle.
you guys, hoping for singularity are often hopeless ignorant hopers
I like how you pose questions, especially when you cite "big names" that have contrary viewpoints. Great interview, as usual. Thank you.
yes! ayn rand ftw!
I met Peter at a transhumanist conference in San Francisco. In person, he is not as smart or interesting as he seems in interviews online. I have a Masters degree in computer science with a minor in AI and I have no confidence that he will invent AGI.