Hmm. I've read most of the sequences and some of his monograph on FAI, but I don't recall him explicitly arguing against dividing up the work into sub-problems. Intuitively it seems that if you trust person X to cautiously do FAI then you should trust them to be able to pick out sub-problems and be able to determine when it is the case that they have been solved satisfactorily.
Could you point me out to the relevant links?
Also, I might be terribly mistaken here, but it seems like not every component of the AGI puzzle need be tied directly to FAI, at least in the development phase. Each one must be fully understood and integrated into an FAI, but I don't see why, say, I need to be as careful when designing a concept model of an ontology engine that can combine and generalize concepts, at least until I want to integrate it into the FAI, at which point the FAI people could review the best attempts at the various components of AGI and figure out whether any of them are acceptable and then how to integrate them into an FAI framework.
I guess so, but I distinctly remember some writing Eleizer did what gave the strong impression that if your IQ was below 9000 you shouldn't try to do anything but give the SIAI money. I don't remember from where thou and it certainly sounds weird, so maybe my memory just messed up.
Follow up to: Best career models for doing research?
First, I must apologize for the somewhat self-serving post, but as it is in the discussion section I hope that this can be forgiven. Also, I would not be surprised if there are at least a few college age people lurking around with very similar problems/issues, so I expect that this might prove very useful to at least a couple of people here. If this works out, I do hope to eventually put it into the form of a more general top-level post on career advice for those interested in a career in AGI.
Now, on to the issue:
It has come to my attention that research opportunities in AGI appear to both be somewhat limited, and somewhat unstructured compared to more well-developed fields that I have looked into. It seems to me that it would be useful to have a discussion here, given the unusual population density of AGI enthusiasts/professionals, about the possible pathways that one might take after the completion of an undergraduate degree. In my case, I have a strong background in mathematics, computer science and philosophy as well as a growing knowledge base in psychology. I've been studying Pearl's work, Timeless Decision Theory, cognitive science, evolutionary and cognitive psychology, Bishop's book on Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning, the link between category theory and cognitive science/AI (which appears to have some promise for building ontologies that can combine concepts and generalize), game theory, probability/statistics, computational complexity and I have been trying to get a few more programming languages under my belt.
My initial impulse was to go ahead and study for, and then take, all of the relevant GRE subject tests (Mathematics, Psychology and Computer science anyway) and apply to cognitive science and computer science programs with strong AGI groups. I've found that the latter option is more difficult that I had realized, which is somewhat disheartening, as my future planning model does not seem to work in such an underdeveloped field, and there is no easy to find established standard source for finding out which schools/programs to look at. I also realized that the former option does not necessarily conform to my research interestes as much as I would like it to, this being a fairly long term commitment.
Perhaps I lack the knowledge to successfully evaluate AGI programs; perhaps in the case of this particular area getting a PhD is not the best option; perhaps if I were more knowledgeable or wiser I might be better able to navigate where to go next, but I seem to be at a loss here. So; I come to you, fellow Less Wrongians, in search of guidance. Can any of you help to point me (and hopefully plenty of others) in the right (or at least less wrong) direction?