Thank goodness, because I was starting to wonder whether I should be worried about Ben Goetzel's AGI project. This puts my mind at ease, at least for a while.
It shouldn't (not as a general rule; Ben's case might have other valid reasons to come to the same conclusion). Being confused in one area doesn't necessarily make you confused in another (or prevents from being capable despite confusion). Not getting the problem of FAI doesn't prevent you from working towards AGI. Believing in God or Santa Claus or flying yogi doesn't prevent you from working towards AGI. Evolution didn't even have a mind.
Well, I've already observed what looks like confusion in the area of AGI. We can imagine this new evidence shows susceptibility to biases that would hinder his work.
But until now I've tentatively assumed Ben did not plan for interesting AI results because on some level he didn't expect to produce any. More precisely, I concluded this on the basis of two assumptions: that he didn't want to die, and that expecting interesting results would make him worry somewhat about death.
I specifically said he did not make his decision based on the arguments that I saw h...
Ben Goertzel has a rather long psi-related article in Humanity Plus Magazine, apparently prompted by the recent precognition study to be published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. He's arguing that psi is real and we should expect to see the results of this study replicated.