Ben Goertzel on Charity

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Artificial general intelligence researcher Ben Goertzel answered my question on charitable giving and gave his permission to publish it here. I think the opinion of highly educated experts who have read most of the available material is important to estimate the public and academic perception of risks from AI and the effectiveness with which the risks are communicated by LessWrong and the SIAI.

Alexander Kruel asked:

What would you do with $100,000 if it were given to you on the condition that you donate it to a charity of your choice?

Ben Goertzel replied:

Unsurprisingly, my answer is that I would donate the $100,000 to the OpenCog project which I co-founded and with which I'm currently heavily involved. This doesn't mean that I think OpenCog should get 100% of everybody's funding; but given my own state of knowledge, I'm very clearly aware that OpenCog could make great use of $100K for research working toward beneficial AGI and a positive Singularity. If I had $100M rather than $100K to give away, I would have to do more research into which other charities were most deserving, rather than giving it all to OpenCog!

What can one learn from this?

The SIAI is not the only option to work towards a positive Singularity
The SIAI should try to cooperate more closely with other AGI projects to potentially have a positive impact.

I'm planning to contact and ask various experts, who are aware of risks from AI, the same question.

Alexander Kruel asked:

What would you do with $100,000 if it were given to you on the condition that you donate it to a charity of your choice?

Ben Goertzel replied:

Unsurprisingly, my answer is that I would donate the $100,000 to the OpenCog project which I co-founded and with which I'm currently heavily involved. This doesn't mean that I think OpenCog should get 100% of everybody's funding; but given my own state of knowledge, I'm very clearly aware that OpenCog could make great use of $100K for research working toward beneficial AGI and a positive Singularity. If I had $100M rather than $100K to give away, I would have to do more research into which other charities were most deserving, rather than giving it all to OpenCog!

What can one learn from this?

The SIAI is not the only option to work towards a positive Singularity
The SIAI should try to cooperate more closely with other AGI projects to potentially have a positive impact.

I'm planning to contact and ask various experts, who are aware of risks from AI, the same question.

I don't, but

Your 'lessons learned' implies you do.

it is evidence that people disagree with the SIAI and think that there are more effective ways towards a positive Singularity.

This is not news to anyone.

Don't forget that he once worked for the SIAI.

I don't think he was ever on their payroll, so 'worked for' is inaccurate. Also, he's still on their advisory board: http://singinst.org/aboutus/ourmission/ . Finally, OpenCog started from within SIAI as far as I know, and is still mentioned on the history page.

I had people going through my comments downvoting over 40 in a matter of minutes. I have seen enough irrational and motivated voting behavior to not trust it anymore, especially when it comes to anything about the community itself.

Fair enough.

To the point about my 'lessons'. It is what I inferred from talking to Goertzel. I still don't see what is wrong with that. If it annoys you too much let me know and I'll just remove that part.

I'm weary of apparently making people angry, so I'll apologize at this point and post any further exchanges and writings on my personal blog. I just don't want to spoil the fun for everyone else. My goal is to collect evidence on how to best contribute my time and money. I heard most of the arguments from within this community and I think it is essential to also list... (read more)

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Ben Goertzel on Charity

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Ben Goertzel on Charity

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